This week, NCAN released our 2021 National College Access and Success Benchmarking Report, “Closing the College Graduation Gap.” The report highlights NCAN’s commitment to reporting on the outcomes of the college access and success field. We do this because our members’ work matters for students, families, communities, states, and the nation overall.
In addition to our Benchmarking Report, we are also holding up some of our members’ own efforts reporting on their program performance and outcomes. The below is adapted from a forthcoming Beyond 12 brief on the postsecondary outcomes of their students over the past year.
Beyond 12 is dedicated to increasing the number of historically underrepresented students who graduate from college through a platform that combines near-peer virtual human coaching, student-facing mobile apps, and a predictive and prescriptive analytics
engine. We work in partnership with college-access organizations, K-12 and higher education institutions, citywide partnerships, and scholarship organizations to support students and provide student tracking and analytics insights to our partner organizations.
Organized around an evidence-based curriculum that includes customized content on academic success, financial stability, and campus resources, as well as building social capital, and career planning, our program and products ensure that students have
the academic, social, and emotional support they need to succeed in higher education and beyond.
Ninety-five percent of the students we work with are from groups that have not traditionally gone to college, including students who are the first in their families to attend college, from under-resourced communities, and from racial and ethnic groups
that have been historically underrepresented. The pandemics we have been experiencing – COVID-19 but also race-based violence and anti-Black police brutality – have exacerbated the already profound inequities in higher education. Like our
peer organizations, our work over the past 18 months has been intensely focused on mitigating these effects.
These firsthand experiences are reflected in national matriculation and enrollment data. Early findings from the National Student Clearinghouse show unprecedented declines in matriculation and enrollment. National data from spring 2021 show a 7% decline in college-direct rates overall, and 11% for students from high poverty high schools.Similarly, there is a 10% drop in annual enrollment at 2-year publics, and 3.6% overall.
These declines grew in spring 2021, with a 5% drop in enrollment compared to the same time last year. This is the steepest
decline in enrollment since the onset of the pandemic, with community colleges experiencing the greatest decline in enrollment (9.5% decrease compared to spring 2020).
Moreover, these declines are even greater for underrepresented Black and Latinx students. Overall enrollment of Black/African American students fell by 9%.
Community college enrollment for Hispanic/Latinx students fell 14%. And early data suggests that first-generation students, Pell-eligible,
and underrepresented students of color have been disproportionately affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. Community colleges experienced an 18 percentage-point decline in
college-direct enrollments among 2020 high school graduates from low-income high schools. In public four-year institutions, enrollment declined 5% among 2020 high school graduates from low-income high schools.
This is certainly the experience reflected back to us by the students we coach. Among students served by Beyond 12, enrollment numbers decreased and the number of stop-outs increased this past year. We have seen enrollment declines across all postsecondary
cohorts when comparing to the mean among pre-COVID cohorts. The biggest persistence declines have been among students early in their postsecondary careers.
And yet, our students are doing better than expected based on the national enrollment trends, and we are confident that this is true for many of our peer NCAN organizations as well. The work college access and success organizations do is integral to addressing inequalities in post-secondary matriculation, persistence, and completion. We hypothesize that in these moments of social and educational crisis, the support and infrastructure provided by our programs matters even more. The resources, relationships, and support offered by our organizations provide an insulating effect,
sheltering our students from some of the pandemics’ effects.
At Beyond 12, students remained engaged with their coaches over this past year despite online learning fatigue and complicated circumstances. Students have shared with their coaches how difficult it has been to focus on academics during this time, as
well as about difficulties with online learning and comprehension in asynchronous courses. They have strategized, identified next steps, and felt community with other students experiencing similar challenges. Now, as we look toward the coming academic
year, they are craving clarity about what coming semesters will look like and are focused on how they might be able to get back on track with their college goals.
We also find that our efforts to combat the negative effects of the COVID-19 pandemic for our students have had an impact. Our preliminary analysis suggests that community college students coached by Beyond 12 experienced declines in fall 2020 enrollment at half the rate of national benchmarks and our students at four-year institutions have experienced limited enrollment disruptions. This is all worth celebrating.
However, because a core component of our program is a student tracking platform that integrates enrollment information with student activities data and coaching notes, we have been able to explore these trends with more nuance. What we found was that
over the past year many students served by Beyond 12 were under-enrolled or enrolled part-time because of work and family obligations. Students attempted and earned slightly fewer credits than in previous years. Finally, we have discovered that many
more students have access and infrastructure challenges than was previously apparent.
Without stealing thunder from the encouraging enrollment data, we are concerned that the current enrollment and grade continuity is masking challenges that will continue to shape and constrain our students’ college experiences for years to come.
For example, while student grades and GPAs have remained mostly stable, our students report learning loss and worry about preparedness for higher-level courses. The majority of our students who matriculated this past year have shared that they really
struggled to access campus resources and support services and feel less connected to their postsecondary institutions.
It is not yet clear whether and how students who were unable to maintain momentum in terms of credit accumulation or degree pathways will be able to get back on track or afford additional post-secondary terms.
Many of these challenges, of course, are ones that the field as a whole is grappling with and ones that will require change and collaboration at institutional levels. Upon publication, the remainder of this brief will consider insights from Beyond 12
coaches and students, including what they hope postsecondary institutions understand about the college journey over the past 18 months, and what those institutions can do to improve students’ outcomes going forward.
For more information on Beyond 12’s programming and services, visit beyond12.org.
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