Graduation and Persistence Rates:

Graduation andPersistence Rates: Comparing Regularly Admitted First-Time Freshmen (FTRs) and California Community College (CCC) Transfers Presenter: James Ssemakula Contact: Philip Garcia pgarcia@calstate.edu

Comparing Regularly Admitted First-Time Freshmen (FTRs) and California Community College (CCC) Transfers Graduation and Persistence Rates • Generally, one gets the false impression that CCC Transfers perform better than native CSU FTRs in such comparisons. • What is the most equitable way of making such comparisons? • It is incorrect to simply take persistence rates of a given cohort of FTRs and compare it to corresponding CCC Transfers.

Incorrect Comparison: All CCC Transfers vs. First-Time Freshmen – Graduation Rate

Incorrect Comparison: All CCC Transfers vs. First-Time Freshmen – Persistence Rate

Direct comparisons of persistence rates inappropriate because The two groups of students are quite different in that: • CCC transfers have had the benefit of, and survived, up to 2 years of post-secondary education • That experience allows them to develop useful collateral skill, e.g. time-management, good study-habits, ability to navigate the education bureaucracy at an institution of higher learning, and so on. The advantage of that experience translates into earlier graduation for CCC students, e.g. after 2 years at CSU • 10% of them graduate, where it takes native FTRs a little over 4 years to achieve this mark. By the 3rd year, 30% of CCC transfers have graduated. It takes native students 5 years to get to this mark.

What to do to make comparisons of persistence rates more meaningful? • We need to equalize the two cohorts whose rates we want to compare. • Here equalization was done by selecting first-time freshmen who had survived 2 years of college instruction at CSU from among FTRs admitted in 1986. • This cohort, labeled 'Equalized FTR', was then compared to the 1988 cohort of CCC Transfers.

All CCC Transfers vs. Equalized First-Time Freshmen – Graduation Rate

Equalized FTRs preformed better than their CCC Transfer counterparts after 3 years of parity. • At the end of a ten year period of monitoring, 78% of the Equalized FTRs had graduated, compared to 66% for CCC Transfers. Also, Equalized FTRs reached graduation milestones ahead of CCC transfers. • Selecting only upper division transfers did not improve the situation much. At the end of a ten year period, 68% had graduated, which is 10 percentage points less than the equalized FTRs.

All CCC Transfers vs. Equalized First-Time Freshmen – Persistence Rate

Upper Division Transfers vs. Equalized First-Time Freshmen – Graduation Rate

Upper Division Transfers vs. Equalized First-Time Freshmen – Persistence Rate

A further refinement was done by selecting only those transfers who had a high school graduation date of 1986. • This sub-group, labeled 'Elite Transfers', were thought to be more similar to the equalized FTRs in having the same high school graduation date and having survived 2 years of college instruction. • At the end of a 10-year period, 74% of the Elite transfers had graduated, compared to 78% for the Equalized FTRs.

Elite CCC Transfers vs. Equalized First-Time Freshmen – Graduation Rate

Elite CCC Transfers vs. Equalized First-Time Freshmen – Persistence Rate

Summary • It is inappropriate to make direct comparisons of persistence rates of FTRs and CCC Transfers because they represent different type of students, with respect to experience in post-secondary education. • Rather, it is more equitable to select FTRs who have survived 2 years of college instruction. • Such equalized FTRs were found to perform better than any subset of CCC transfers considered here. • Gender and/or ethnic differences were not considered in this study.

Summary – Graduation Rate

Summary – Persistence Rate

Graduation andPersistence Rates: Comparing Regularly Admitted First-Time Freshmen (FTRs) and California Community College (CCC) Transfers Presenter: James Ssemakula

Graduation and Persistence Rates: