Project Win-Win At Mid-Point:
Just How Low-Hanging Is the
Fruit of Associate’s Degrees?
Cliff Adelman, Institute for Higher
Education Policy, Aug. 9, 2012
My labels for this search
Finding the eligibles: the unrecognized
attainment of community college
students.
Most people think degrees just happen--they don’t!
You get what we call Project Win-Win
(one for the institution; one for the
student).
Does it work? Here are those
who are trying under Win-Win
Phase
States
Community
Colleges
Pilot
9/09 – 5/10
Louisiana, New
York, Ohio
6
3
Expansion I
9/10 – 8/13
Louisiana,
Missouri, New
York, Ohio,
Virginia,
Wisconsin
21
(includes Pilot
institutions)
12
(includes Pilot
institutions)
Expansion II
9/11 – 8/13
Florida,
Oregon,
Michigan
29
4-year Instits.
0
Can you do this, too? Ask your
data base for all students who:
Were not enrolled in 2011/2012
Initial enrollment at any time after 2002.
Cachement period a minimum of 7.5 years.
Initial enrollment can be transfer-in (41% in
in 55 reporting institutions).
threshold Credits (60-64). Ave. transfer-in
credits in 55 reporting institutions= 39.
GPA threshold: whatever is required for
graduation
No Associate’s earned from institution; no
certificates, either.
This is the “universe of interest.” It totals
130k in the 62 Win-Win institutions.
You would be surprised as to how
many schools cannot do this because:
They have never asked this basic tracking
question;
Their data systems do not contain basic
variables necessary for the definition of the
universe;
They changed data systems and have yet to
reconcile old and new.
Central state agencies in Florida and Oregon
are defining the Universe of Interest for the
participating institutions, and even they had
problems enough to re-do the data 2 and 3
times.
You then match with state and
NSC data. What happens?
Duplicate counts when students attend
more than two institutions in-state.
State has recorded degrees from
inquiring institutions and the institution
does not.
Half of the schools skip the state data
match because the state data are awful,
do not include private institutions, and
the agency works with the speed of a
turtle in February. NSC is much better.
How far did this get us?
How far will it get you?
36% of the Universe of Interest remained
after both matchings, along with a very
inconsistent set of local exclusions.
Local exclusions (residency, degree “holds,”
specific courses) should have been held
until after Degree Audit;
This phase of this process will knock out
nearly 2/3rds of your universe of interest!
3rd Step: the Degree Audit
Despite credits, GPA, etc., did they really qualify?
Some institutions have developed software with degree
templates; most do not have such aids.
So you get hand-and-eye readings. These average
about 10-15 minutes per case. The range is 5 -25
minutes.
Off-the-shelf products included SCT On-Course, CAPP
(Sunguard), Degree Works, DARS, and local productions.
But you get hand-and-eye even after an automated
audit, i.e. the software does not pick up nuance.
You can read based on the student’s declared major or
with the template of the default transfer degree.
In general, the degree requirements are those currently
in effect, but you must decide which catalogue is in
effect for each student.
You begin to smell the problems that can turn up.
So what have 34 reporting institutions
come up with after Degree Audit?
4250 “eligibles”
13740 “potentials”
7600 neither
That’s out of 44,900 in the starting
bin for these schools. And
Some of this is in progress, and
these numbers keep changing.
The key blockage point: institutional
degree award policy
Opt-in only:
67%
Opt-out only:
27%
Institutional Override 6%
Translation into real data:
2683 of the 4253 “eligibles” (63%)
have been awarded degrees to
date.
Then there are the “potentials,” who
everybody thinks will return to school to
finish
Some of them have returned while you
were working through
Some of them (so far, 1100) can’t be
found
A third are missing college-level math,
and are not very promising returns
And things called “life” get in the way.
The content and method of the contact
process is critical in this effort.
Regardless of your take, these
are your students
Your degrees;
And you cannot tolerate even 10 % of
those who initially look eligible walking
around the country empty-handed;
We estimate 100,000 “eligibles” across
1200 community colleges.
So are you ready to pick more lowhanging fruit?