How You Can Use College Outcomes Data to Better Advise Students and Families

Advising
Written By Jesse Carrillo

by Contigo Ed's Data Analytics and Professional Learning Teams

While a big focus of college access is supporting students with enrolling in college, where students enroll plays a larger role than you might think in how likely students are to graduate from college. 

A lot of our district partners focus heavily on college applications and FAFSA completion. These steps are absolutely crucial in helping students navigate the many hurdles that exist in enrolling in college in the Fall. However, we hope that this blog post helps you appreciate the opportunity that exists in using college attainment data to guide and advise students and families in making an informed and empowered decision. 

In our work, we have found student-level data such as GPA, attendance, advanced coursework participation, and test scores to be very predictive of college attainment once students enroll in college. That might seem rather self-evident. Interestingly, the graduation rate of the college itself is also a significant predictor. Just check out the graph below that is part of our typical analysis for district partners. The orange bars represent the graduation rates of this district’s students when they enroll at each college. The purple bars represent that college’s overall graduation rate for all students. What do you notice?

A few things our district partners often reflect on:

  • The orange bars vary a LOT. In other words, there are big differences in students’ success in college depending on where they enroll. 

  • The orange bars tend to follow the purple bars! And pretty closely at that. Said another way, how the district’s students do in college (in orange) typically follows the college’s overall graduation rate (in purple).

Now we will say that this is dummy data that we made up; however, our Analytics team has done this analysis for dozens of our district partners, and while the specifics change (e.g., college names, whether the orange or purple bar is higher for each college), the above observations are always apparent. 

If you’re skeptical like us, what you might point out is that this is a self-fulfilling pattern. Our district’s highest-achieving students are more likely to be accepted and enroll in these more selective colleges, so it makes sense that then these colleges are where our students do best; that’s where our highest-achieving students go. And you would largely be correct with that assertion. However, the other part of the story is that students of color and from low-income families are less likely to enroll at these selective colleges than their peers - they are more likely to “undermatch”. If you are not as familiar with that term and concept, let us give an extremely common example we see play out with our Texas district partners. Hispanic / Latino students, even those with high GPA’s and test scores, are more likely than their peers to enroll at their local community college. With some notable exceptions, this typically puts them on a path that leaves them less likely to graduate with a college degree because these colleges often have lower graduation rates. 

So what does this all mean for how we advise students? In partnership with our Professional Learning team, we like to tackle this through both the “art” and the “science”. 

  • The “Science” - To account for the many nuances above, we like to compare the above student success data by GPA bucket. E.g., for the top 10% of students what colleges promote the highest persistence / graduation rates (instead of looking at all students at the same time)? What about for the next 15% of students? Are certain student groups, or all student groups, doing particularly well at the local community college relative to other college options?

    • For example, in a recent analysis with a district partner we identified Stephen F. Austin State University, Texas A&M University - Corpus Christi, and other colleges where the district’s students in the top 11-25% had much higher success rates relative to their peers enrolling at the local community college. That information is allowing the district to potentially share those colleges as another option for students, and has even led the district to consider more intentional partnerships with some of these colleges.

    • You might not have the capacity to run this analysis on your own students’ outcomes, or maybe this much data feels like overkill for you and your team. If that’s the case, you can still make great strides using national databases to help students and families see graduation and persistence rates from colleges they are considering. We like to use College Scorecard in our practice activities with counselors and advisors. Each school has a “Graduation & Retention” tab where you can get a quick snapshot of data. You can even filter for Pell-eligible students. 

  • The “Art”  - What do we do with this data once we have it? How do we help advisors, students, and families make sense of it all?

    • Students and families often look to counselors and advisors for their guidance and advice on their postsecondary options. It’s incredibly helpful to have data available in advising conversations, and those numbers often mean nothing until they are infused with historical knowledge and lived experiences. What do these graduation %s actually mean? At its most basic level, the US Department of Education’s College Scorecard defines it as “the proportion of entering students that graduated [earned a degree] at this school within 8 years of entry, regardless of their full-time/part-time status or prior postsecondary experience. Graduation is measured 8 years after entry, irrespective of the award sought or award obtained.” Okay, but let’s dig a little deeper and start to infuse some meaning.  What other factors might have helped students earn that degree at that university? We often hear things like generous and transparent financial aid award offers, accessible, high-quality programming and resources that support students with their academic, social and emotional challenges, and strong, on-campus adult support. In some instances, counselors and advisors report that having critical masses of alums from that high school help with transition and a continuing sense of belonging.  

    • Our Professional Learning team has taken this data and presented it in front of counselors. Making counselors and advising staff aware of these differences is a crucial component to them helping their students. When staff are empowered with this data, they are able to better advise their students and encourage them to enroll at colleges with higher graduation rates, ones where they are likely to be more successful. We like to encourage counselors and advisors in decision-making conversations to have students gather all of their admission decisions and sort the schools based on their graduation rates.  Take a look at our Transition and Summer Melt Microcourse to see how we have built this practice into our Final Student / Family / Caregiver Meeting template. When it comes to College Fit, Outcomes is just one of the factors we encourage practitioners to consider with their students and families. What is it that your students are looking for from their college experience? Contigo Ed Content Expert, Rob Mooring, shares his thoughts in this video on what he says are his most important factors when helping choose a college. 

If you geeked out about the data above and want to learn more about how we look at college success data, feel free to reach out to our Analytics team (noa@contigoed.org). If you want to learn more about how our Professional Learning team brings this data to life with counselors and advisors, learn more and check out a few of their amazing resources below as well:

Jesse Carrillo
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