LearnmoreMN Blog

Postsecondary participation, graduation and degree attainment: asking the right questions

By Lesley Lydell, January guest blogger

Are too many people going to college? This was the provocative topic of a recent live debate between entrepreneurs, pundits and academic leaders. While ultimately valuing the breadth of educational options available to students, the debate highlighted the decision to pursue a postsecondary degree amid rising costs and uncertain employment prospects for graduates.

At the same time, many employers, academic organizations and political leaders have issued calls for increased numbers of individuals who have earned a postsecondary degree. Increasing educational attainment nationally was a prominent part of President Obama’s American Graduation Initiative, which set a national goal of 60% of adults age 25-64 having an associate degree or higher by 2020, as well as a key goal for the Lumina Foundation, a major supporter of educational initiatives, and Complete College America, a national initiative started in 2009. A common aspect of these initiatives has been to encourage college participation for recent high school graduates but also to encourage adults and those already in the workforce to pursue and complete a postsecondary credential.

Data in the revised edition of Minnesota Measures: 2011 Report on Higher Education Performance illustrate an overall increase in students’ participation in postsecondary education and graduation rates, as well as broader postsecondary attainment rates in the overall population.

Increasing participation of high school graduates and older students

• For all Minnesota high school graduates, the number who go on to college increased in 2010 to 71% enrolling in college within a year of their high school graduation. Of the 71% of high school graduates who go directly on to college, nearly three-quarters chose a postsecondary institution in Minnesota.
• Most Minnesota undergraduates in fall 2010 were age 24 and younger and attended full-time at a four-year institution, although the largest increase in undergraduate enrollment during the past decade has been at Minnesota two-year institutions among students age 20 and older.
• At both two-year and four-year institutions, students between 25 and 34 had the greatest increases in enrollment over the past decade: a 117% enrollment increase at two-year institutions in the state and a 19% increase at four-year institutions.

High population attainment and increasing graduation rates
Minnesota ranks highly among states in educational attainment rates, which measure in broad terms through U.S. Census data the education level of the population, whether or not they graduated from a Minnesota institution. Attainment rates do not include postsecondary credentials below an associate degree, and Minnesota postsecondary institutions award nearly as many certificates as associate degrees. Some key findings:

• Postsecondary attainment has increased substantially over the past 40 years, with the percentage of bachelor’s degree recipients nearly tripling since 1970 in Minnesota.
• For the traditional working-age population of 18-64 year olds, 41% of Minnesotans have an associate degree or higher, ranking sixth-highest in attainment nationwide.
• Among younger age groups, 49% of Minnesotans age 25-34 and 35-44 have an associate degree or higher, ranking third- and second-highest, respectively, nationwide.
• Sizeable gaps exist, however, in postsecondary attainment between racial and ethnic population groups over age 25, with only Asian (50%) and white Minnesotans (42%) exceeding the state average (41%) and the national average (38%).

Although Minnesota attracts many graduates from other states to live and work, increases in graduation rates at Minnesota institutions have also contributed to the increase in postsecondary attainment rates:

• In 2010, 40% of undergraduates earned their degree within four years and 61% graduated within six years, representing five and three percent increases, respectively, since 2005.
• The number of academic awards earned across all levels annually by Minnesota postsecondary students has been increasing over the past decade, ranging from a 146% increase in master’s degrees awarded to a 15% increase in certificates.

Minnesota overall has high rates of postsecondary participation, graduation, degree attainment, and granting of academic awards from doctorates to certificates. Exploring how we can ensure that all students are prepared and have the opportunity to succeed in postsecondary education may yield the most productive discussions. What are the important questions we should be asking about postsecondary attainment at the local level, in Minnesota, and nationally?

This way or the highway

By Lindsey Alexander, July guest blogger

Last week, the New York Times published an article on the challenges facing vocational education in the U.S. today. They profiled a young man, Matt Kelly, who was disinterested in school and failing several high school classes. His mother feared he wouldn’t graduate. But a counselor encouraged him to take some classes at a nearby vocational academy in his junior year. There he found himself interested and motivated by the coursework. He started getting A’s and B’s and earned a scholarship to a community college.

Mr. Kelly’s experience mirrors that of thousands and thousands of students across the country. They have a hard time taking interest or finding motivation in the current educational system and upon graduation from high school (if they make it that far) — they are essentially set adrift in the labor market.

In his 2009 State of the Union speech, President Obama spoke of a plan to increase U.S. post-secondary attainment. In his speech, he asked every American to commit to one year or more of education beyond high school adding, “this can be community college, a four-year school, vocational training or an apprenticeship.” The range of post-secondary options presented by President Obama is important. For the past few decades, the four-year degree has been touted as the ticket to the middle class. While this emphasis on the bachelor’s degree has worked well for many students, there is a significant portion of the population that it does not work for. It is critical that we find a way to train and educate all young people if we expect to meet the future needs of individuals and our economy.

According to Pathways to Prosperity, a report released earlier this year by the Harvard Graduate School of Education, 70% of high school graduates go to college within two years of graduating, but only 40% of them obtain a degree by their mid-20s. Furthermore, the U.S. has the highest college dropout rate in the industrialized world. In addressing why these problems may be occuring, the report says:

Certainly a major reason is that too many [students] can’t see a clear, transparent connection between their program of study and tangible opportunities in the labor market. We fail these young people not because we are indifferent, but because we have focused too exclusively on a few narrow pathways to success. It is time to widen our lens and to build a more finely articulated pathways system — one that is richly diversified to align with the needs and interests of today’s young people and better designed to meet the needs of the 21st century economy.

This focus on “a few narrow pathways to success” might explain a lot of the problems plaguing higher education: non-completion, skyrocketing costs, students arriving and/or graduating unprepared, unsatisfied employers, increases in student loans, barriers to access, etc.

Creating multiple pathways to careers might help young people find a connection to a future, stay interested in school and explore post-secondary options that make sense for them.

The Department of Education reports that 75% of students who start public high school graduate within five years, but this figure increases to more than 90% when students concentrate in “career-oriented courses.” As the guidance counselor of the young man in the New York Times article said, “Matt came in with zero motivation — let’s face it. [Technical courses were] a route to get him to see his future.”

As part of the Citizens League’s higher education project we’ve asked people to re-imagine our system of higher education — the institutions themselves, but also K-12, students, employers, families and society. If clearly defined career pathways are indeed what is needed, what do they look like? How might we create them? What role would the various players (employers, students, K-12, etc.) have in these pathways?

Why Minnesota needs a specific goal and a deadline for higher education completion

By Dane Smith, April guest blogger

Parents say it, business leaders and sports team coaches pound on it, and we all know this truism is true: We all perform better with goals and deadlines.

I think baseball legend and malaprop master Yogi Berra said it best: "If you don't know where you are going, you'll end up someplace else." Or as David Metzen, former director of the Minnesota Office of Higher Education under Gov. Tim Pawlenty told us last year, "You run faster if you have a goal and a stopwatch than you do if you have neither."

At Growth & Justice, a policy research organization focused on broadening prosperity in Minnesota, the goal and the stopwatch for higher education attainment is our top public policy priority. We are leading an effort to convince state leaders to establish an official goal for a 75% post-high-school completion rate for Minnesota by the end of this decade. This means that by 2020, 75% of our young adults (by the age of 25) will have acquired some form of post-secondary educational diploma or certificate.

Right now, only about half our workforce at that age has reached this goal. It's important to note that we are not necessarily talking about bachelor's degrees or even two-year associate degrees. An accredited certificate as Home Care Health Aide or in Child Development, for instance, would count as attainment under our goal-setting metrics.

And although it may seem obvious to most of us that striving for and reaching this goal is a good thing, and that knowledge improves our inherent human worth, here's the hard-headed business sense on why this is important. While Minnesota is fortunate to be home to a "smarter" and more productive economy than most states, our distinctive prosperity and quality-of-life won't continue unless we reinforce our proud culture of maximizing educational achievement and attainment. A mountain of evidence shows a strong and direct and growing correlation between education and personal income, education and productivity, education and health, education and civic engagement, and education and broad socio-economic vitality.

In a competitive global economy that is demanding smarter workers and ever greater technological skill, we have no choice. And although that 75% goal may look a little arbitrary, we know it's in the ballpark of what we need. A recent study by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce found that Minnesota will need 70% of its workforce to have post-secondary training by the year 2018. Here's a direct quote from the report: "The District of Columbia, Massachusetts, Colorado, Minnesota and Washington state will lead the nation in job openings requiring postsecondary education."

Many groups and leaders are rallying around this goal-setting, nationally and in Minnesota. President Obama, noting that the United States has lost its historic and traditional place as the most educated nation in the world, has set a goal of making us #1 again in average attainment. And making Minnesota the most educated state in the world's most educated nation is about as good as it gets for goal-setting.