Postsecondary Enrollment, Outcomes, and Subgroup Trends

The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center will produce annual publications on postsecondary enrollment, outcomes, and subgroup trends to gauge progress in pandemic recovery and identify the places and populations that are in greatest need of intervention. In addition to reports, the Research Center will create interactive data dashboards to allow users to drill down on specific student demographic subgroups, institution types, and states of interest.

The Research Center has been publishing reports on postsecondary enrollment, progress, transfer, and completion since 2011. At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Research Center accelerated its reporting to address the pressing needs of the education community for timely information about COVID-19’s impact on students and institutions. The Current Term Enrollment Estimates report series provides updates each fall and spring on the most up-to-date enrollment trends, and the Transfer, Mobility, and Progress series provides regular updates on transfer students. 

As part of the ARCC Network, the Research Center will enhance these publications, with a focus on key metrics related to recovery for community colleges and their students, the sector hardest hit by the pandemic. Together, these publications will shed light on the progress of community colleges in reengaging and serving students as they recover from the pandemic and ensure that policymakers and the public have access to trusted, objective, and timely data on the post-pandemic recovery. 

This project is supported by the Institute of Education Sciences, U.S. Department of Education, through Grant R305X220022 to Teachers College, Columbia University.

Doug Shapiro, Ph.D., is vice president, research, of the National Student Clearinghouse and executive director of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. As part of his work for the Research Center, he established over a dozen new reports, with metrics on student access, persistence, transfer, and completion. He can be reached at shapiro@studentclearinghouse.org.