Six-year Completion Rates

(July 2015). U.S. colleges and universities have had to disclose their graduation rates since Congress passed the Student Right-to-Know Act in 1990. The federal definition for calculating graduation rates has several limitations that yield misleading information about community colleges. The chief flaws are inclusion of non-degree-seeking students, an assumption that students who start full-time remain full-time, failure to follow students as they transfer among institutions and across state lines, and a study period too short to capture most completions. Last year, the National Student Clearinghouse sent reports to colleges participating in Clearinghouse data collections that showed six-year completion rates for students starting in fall 2007. They repeated the analysis this year for students starting college in fall 2008. These reports address the flaws in the federal definition and provide the best data available on community college completion rates. This report compares Carroll’s completion rates with national community college averages for both cohorts of students. In almost every case, Carroll’s completion rates improved in the more recent cohort and were notably above the national averages.

Fall 2015 Third Week Enrollment Report

(October 2015). Credit headcount in Fall 2015 was 3,549, a decline of 112 students or 3.1 percent from Fall 2014. The decline was expected; the headcount assumption used in developing the FY2016 budget (3,558) differed by only nine students. The average credit hour load fell from 9.32 to 9.19, resulting in a FTE enrollment drop of 4.4 percent. Although there were 78 fewer graduates from the County high schools in 2015 than the year before, the number of graduates enrolling at Carroll increased by 68. This fall’s enrollment rate of 26.2 percent was the highest in five years. One-year retention rates fell for both full-time and part-time students. The percentage of full-time students starting college in Fall 2014 who were still enrolled this fall was 66.5 percent, down from 71.2 percent for students who started in fall 2013—and the lowest in six years. The fall-to-fall retention rate for students starting college as part-time students fell from 59.6 percent to 53.1 percent. Despite this drop, retention of part-time students was the second-highest in college history.

Back to top