Indicator: Postsecondary enrollment directly after high school graduation Breadcrumb Home Indicators Postsecondary Enrollment Directly After High School Graduation Definition High school graduates enroll in a postsecondary institution by October 31 following their high school graduation. Recommended Metric(s) Percentage of high school graduates who enroll in a postsecondary institution by October 31 following their high school graduation1View CEDS ConnectionPercentage of high school graduates who enroll in a postsecondary institution by October 31 following their high school graduationCEDS Connections offer guidance, including data elements and step-by-step analysis recommendations, for how to calculate select metrics.View PowerBI ReportReport: Postsecondary enrollment directly after high school graduationPower BI reports developed by the Common Education Data Standards (CEDS) Open Source Community (OSC) reflect key metrics for comprehensive analysis and decision-making.1 This indicator captures enrollment in all for-credit postsecondary education, including credit-bearing career and technical education (CTE) courses. Enrollment in non-credit CTE coursework is captured in the successful career transition after high school indicator. Type(s) of Data Needed Administrative data Why it matters College attainment is consistently associated with higher lifetime earnings, and greater benefits accrue with each additional year of education completed.1, 2, 3, 4 However, there are persistent disparities in postsecondary enrollment for students from low-income households and students of color.5 Among the high school class of 2019, 66 percent of students enrolled in college in October. Rates of immediate enrollment after high school were lower among Black students (57 percent) and Latino students (64 percent) than White students (69 percent) and Asian students (82 percent).6 Postsecondary enrollment has continued to fall for each year of the COVID-19 pandemic, dropping 6.5 percent from fall 2019 to fall 2021, with larger decreases among Black, Indigenous, and White students compared to other racial and ethnic groups.Disparities in rates of college enrollment are primarily driven by enrollment in four-year colleges. For example, in Chicago Public Schools (CPS), Black, White, and Asian high school graduates enrolled in two-year colleges at similar rates, whereas Latino students enrolled in two-year colleges at higher rates than all other groups; conversely, Latino students had the lowest rates of four-year college enrollment, followed by Black students.7 Thirty-three percent of Latino male students and 40 percent of Black male students enrolled in a four-year college, compared to 57 percent of White male students and 59 percent of Asian male students. Although female students were more likely to enroll in a four-year college than male students, the disparities across race and ethnicity were similar among female students. What to know about measurement This indicator requires linking K–12 and postsecondary records. The National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) receives student-level postsecondary enrollment records from participating institutions on a regular basis and links high school and postsecondary records for districts or states that participate in its High School Tracker service.8 In 2020, 14 percent of all high schools in the U.S. (representing about 24 percent of high school graduates) participated in the High School Tracker service.9 It is critical to understand not only whether students enroll in postsecondary education directly after high school, but also the type of institution where they first enroll. Postsecondary institutions reporting to the NSC capture approximately 97 percent of all postsecondary enrollment in Title IV degree-granting institutions; however, some types of institutions are less likely to report to the NSC, especially private two-year colleges and for-profit institutions.10 viii State higher education departments may have direct access to enrollment records for in-state colleges and may supplement these data with records from the NSC to capture out-of-state enrollment. Currently, 33 states link K–12 and postsecondary records as part of their state longitudinal data systems.11viii For additional caveats about NSC data, see Dynarski, S. M., Hemelt, S. W., & Hyman, J. M. (2015). The missing manual: Using national student clearinghouse data to track postsecondary outcomes. Educational Evaluation and Policy Analysis, 37(1S), 53S-79S. https://doi.org/10.3102/0162373715576078 E-W Case Studies Image From Data to Action: Nebraska’s Blueprint for Education and Workforce Success Through its robust research framework and innovative data visualizations, Nebraska's NSWERS system transforms complex data into actionable insights for policymakers, educators, and families. View Case Study Image California's Cradle-to-Career Data System California is developing a data system that brings together data from early learning programs, schools, colleges, financial aid providers, employers, workforce training programs, and social services. View Case Study Image Access to Student-Level FAFSA Completion Data in Iowa Staff in all public high schools in Iowa can now access data on whether their students completed the Free Application for Federal Student Aid (FAFSA) and receive weekly FAFSA reports. View Case Study Image National Student Clearinghouse Postsecondary Data Partnership The National Student Clearinghouse launched this partnership to equip participating postsecondary institutions with timely data and tools that can inform decision making. View Case Study Source frameworks This indicator appeared in 17 source frameworks reviewed for this report. Our proposed measure aligns with work by Education Strategy Group on the From Tails to Heads framework. References 8National Student Clearinghouse. (2021). StudentTracker. https://www.studentclearinghouse.org/colleges/studenttracker/ 9See National Student Clearinghouse (2021).10National Student Clearinghouse. (2022). Enrollment coverage workbook (June 2021). https://nscresearchcenter.org/workingwithourdata/ 11Education Commission of the States. (2021). 50-state comparison: Statewide longitudinal data systems 2021. https://reports.ecs.org/comparisons/statewide-longitudinal-data-systems-2021-03 1Oreopolous, P., & Petronijevic, U. (2013). Making college worth it: A review of research on the returns to higher education. National Bureau of Economic Research. https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w19053/w19053.pdf2Long, M. C. (2010). Changes in the returns to education and college quality. Economics of Education Review, 29(3), 338–347. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.econedurev.2009.10.005 3Koropeckyj, S., Lafakis, C., & Ozimek, A. (2017). The economic impact of increasing college completion. American Academy of Arts & Sciences. https://www.amacad.org/sites/default/files/publication/downloads/CFUE_Economic-Impact.pdf4Reber, S., Sinclair, C., & Van Drie, H. (2020). Public colleges are the workhorses of middle-class mobility. Brookings Institute. https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2020/07/22/public-colleges-are-the-workhorses-of-middle-class-mobility/ 5Chetty, R., Friedman, J., Saez, E., Turner, N., & Yagan, D. (2017). Mobility report cards: The role of colleges in intergenerational mobility. National Bureau of Economic Research. https://www.nber.org/papers/w236186National Center for Education Statistics. (2019a). Table 302.20.Percentage of recent high school completers enrolled in college, by race/ethnicity: 1960 through 2018. Digest of Education Statistics. Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education. https://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d19/tables/dt19_302.20.asp 7Coca, V. M., Nagaoka, J., & Seekin, A. (2017). Patterns of two-year and four-year college enrollment among Chicago Public Schools graduates. University of Chicago Consortium on School Research. https://eric.ed.gov/?id=ED589667#:~:text=Nineteen%20percent%20of%202009%20CPS,year%20colleges%20within%20four%20years.