Benchmarking Student Retention and Graduation

1. Benchmarking Student Retention and Graduation Joe Filkins Office of Institutional Planning and Research EMR Brown Bag Series, September 24, 2004

2. Overview • Consortium for Student Retention Data Exchange (CSRDE) provides benchmark data • Boxplots provide pictorial display of distribution of retention and graduation rates • Comparisons made by • Institutional Control (public vs. private) • Carnegie Classification • Race • Gender

3. About CSRDE • Consortium for Student Retention Data Exchange • Located at the University of Oklahoma • About 300 institutions represented • Benchmarking Retention • Choose up to 20 reference institutions • Who to choose?

4. Selecting a Reference Group • Statistically created a reference group based on IPEDS data and DePaul’s defining qualities • Catholic • Minimum headcount of 6,000 or • Graduate/professional about 40% of student population • Urban • Research/Doctoral institutions located in or on fringes of a large city • Headcount of 6,000 to 30,000 • 30% to 80% undergraduate • Minimum of 14% business degrees awarded • These sets of criteria combined yielded 58 institutions (including DePaul) to which 2 were added for 60

5. Reference List

6. Reference List

7. Institutions Included CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA DEPAUL UNIVERSITY GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY PACE UNIVERSITY-NEW YORK PEPPERDINE UNIVERSITY PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY ST JOHN'S UNIVERSITY-NEW YORK UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT DENVER UNIVERSITY OF DETROIT MERCY UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII AT MANOA UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-KANSAS CITY UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO WICHITA STATE UNIVERSITY Reference Group

8. Institutions Included CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA DEPAUL UNIVERSITY GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY PACE UNIVERSITY-NEW YORK PEPPERDINE UNIVERSITY PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY ST JOHN'S UNIVERSITY-NEW YORK UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT DENVER UNIVERSITY OF DETROIT MERCY UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII AT MANOA UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-KANSAS CITY UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO WICHITA STATE UNIVERSITY Institutions Added BAYLOR UNIVERSITY GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-ST LOUIS UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MILWAUKEE Reference Group

9. CSRDE Data and Analysis • Dataset received from CSRDE • Data for 1995-2001 cohorts of new freshmen • Fall-to fall retention for year 2 and year 3 • Graduation rates for year 4, 5 and 6 • Race and gender breakdowns • Institutional identifier (IPEDS) • Control • Carnegie Classification • Boxplots were created to show the distribution of scores

10. Interpreting Boxplots Boxplots graphically represent the scores in a distribution Within the box are all scores that fall between the 25th and 75th percentile The whiskers capture all scores within 1.5 IQRs of the box boundary Outliers are between 1.5 and 3 IQRs Extreme outliers are beyond 3 IQRs

11. Comparisons • Overall • Institutional Control • Carnegie Class • Gender • Ethnicity

14. Comparisons • Overall • DePaul’s retention and graduation rates are consistently above the median for the reference group. • Compared to the reference group, our graduation rates are not as strong relatively as our retention rates. • Institutional Control • Carnegie Class • Gender • Ethnicity

15. Comparisons • Overall • Institutional Control • Carnegie Class • Gender • Ethnicity

19. Comparisons • Overall • Institutional Control • DePaul’s rates are below the median for persistence and graduation rates of the privates • When compared to public institutions, DePaul’s rates are considerably above the median • Carnegie Class • Gender • Ethnicity

20. Comparisons • Overall • Institutional Control • Carnegie Class • Gender • Ethnicity

21. Carnegie Class • Three classes in these data • Doctoral-Research Extensive (7 institutions) • Doctoral-Research Intensive (13 institutions) • Masters Colleges and Universities (1 institution) • Boxplots for the Doctoral institution types

24. Comparisons • Overall • Institutional Control • Carnegie Class • DePaul is above the median when compared to both DR-Extensive and –Intensive institutions • However, DePaul’s ratings are closer to the median scores for the DR-Extensive institutions • Gender • Ethnicity

25. Comparisons • Overall • Institutional Control • Carnegie Class • Gender • Ethnicity

28. Comparisons • Overall • Institutional Control • Carnegie Class • Gender • Male and female students were retained at very similar rates into the third year, but the graduation rates for male students were slightly lower (5 to 7 percentage points) than female students. • DePaul does a slightly better job at retaining and graduating male students than female students • Ethnicity

29. Comparisons • Overall • Institutional Control • Carnegie Class • Gender • Ethnicity

32. Comparisons • Overall • Institutional Control • Carnegie Class • Gender • Ethnicity • For African-Americans, DePaul outperforms the median retention and graduation rates. DePaul’s rates, though, do approach the median as time progresses. • For Asian/Pacific Islander students, DePaul consistently outperforms • For Latino/a students, we see a fourth-year graduation rate near the median, but the relative standing improves by the sixth year. • For Caucasian students, DePaul’s retention and graduation rates are consistently between the 50th and 75th percentile.

33. Conclusions • For most comparisons, DePaul’s graduation and retention rates range between the 67th and 75th percentile, if not higher • DePaul does consistently better than the public urban institutions in this group, but consistently worse than most of the other private institutions • DePaul appears to do a relatively better job of retaining and graduating students of color

34. 2002 LIST BAYLOR UNIVERSITY CARNEGIE MELLON UNIVERSITY CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY PACE UNIVERSITY-NEW YORK PEPPERDINE UNIVERSITY PORTLAND STATE UNIVERSITY SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY ST JOHN'S UNIVERSITY-NEW YORK UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT DENVER UNIVERSITY OF DETROIT MERCY UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII AT MANOA UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-KANSAS CITY UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-ST LOUIS UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN-MILWAUKEE WICHITA STATE UNIVERSITY Next Steps

35. 2002 LIST BAYLOR UNIVERSITY CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY PACE UNIVERSITY-NEW YORK SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY ST JOHN'S UNIVERSITY-NEW YORK UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT DENVER UNIVERSITY OF DETROIT MERCY UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII AT MANOA UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-KANSAS CITY UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO WICHITA STATE UNIVERSITY Next Steps

36. Institutions Added for 2003 ADELPHI UNIVERSITY CLEVELAND STATE UNIVERSITY LOYOLA UNIVERSITY CHICAGO UNIVERSITY OF HARTFORD U. MASSACHUSETTS - BOSTON 2002 LIST BAYLOR UNIVERSITY CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY GEORGIA STATE UNIVERSITY PACE UNIVERSITY-NEW YORK SAN DIEGO STATE UNIVERSITY SOUTHERN METHODIST UNIVERSITY ST JOHN'S UNIVERSITY-NEW YORK UNIVERSITY OF ALABAMA AT BIRMINGHAM UNIVERSITY OF COLORADO AT DENVER UNIVERSITY OF DETROIT MERCY UNIVERSITY OF HAWAII AT MANOA UNIVERSITY OF MISSOURI-KANSAS CITY UNIVERSITY OF SAN FRANCISCO WICHITA STATE UNIVERSITY Next Steps

37. For more information… Joe Filkins Office of Institutional Planning and Research Ext. 26746 jfilkins@depaul.edu Or visit our website: http://oipr.depaul.edu