In “Some College, No Degree: A National View of Students with Some College Enrollment, but No Completion,” researchers affiliated with the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center provide a national breakdown of the experience of more than 31 million people who attended college in the past two decades but left school without a degree. The report documents what types of colleges the former students attended; how long a period since former students last enrolled; how many institutions students attended; and how much college they actually completed.
Roughly one-third, or 10 million, left college after enrolling for only one term, according to the report. Among the remaining 21 million former students who attended college for more than a term, approximately 17.5 million failed to move beyond two years of academic progress. The remaining 4 million either reached or moved past the two-year mark.
Deemed “the most relevant to policy discussions centered on the completion agenda,” the 4 million former students who have two or more years of college experience are identified in the report as “potential completers.”
“In general, the most common type of potential completer is age 24-29 and has been out of the postsecondary education system for two to six years, as of December 2013,” the report says.
“We’ve always known there are a lot of people who start college and don’t finish. We’re trying to get a better handle on who’s in that population and really see to what extent this population can become a resource, as opposed to an issue,” Dr. Doug Shapiro, executive research director of the National Student Clearinghouse, told U.S. News and World Report.
The new report notes that “one of the most important findings is the near equal proportions of potential completers who have enrollment histories in two- or four-year institutions exclusively or both.” The data implies that policymakers should make sure that both two-year and four-year institutions are supported in efforts to recruit students who are familiar with their type of institution, the report says.
