The Office of English Language Acquisition (OELA) has synthesized key data on English learners (ELs) into two-page sheets on a variety of subjects. This fact sheet focuses on: (1) State-Level Graduation Rate Percentages for English Learners: School Year 2019-20; (2) Graduation Rate Percentages for English Learners and All Students by State: School…

Using U.S. Department of Education 6-year college graduation rate data for 17 cohorts (1996-2002) to (2012-2018), adverse impact on Black students as compared to White students was evaluated for all 50 states and D.C. Potential relationships between state adverse impact and Black population percentage, geographic location, and political…

Recent state and national achievement exam results, as well as academic progress reports, have underscored how the COVID-19 pandemic and related school closures had a large, negative impact on students' reading and math development. While a great deal is known about the test-based academic impacts of the pandemic such as test scores that provide…

Using recent 6-year college graduation data from the U.S. Department of Education, for the nation as a whole and the 50 states and District of Columbia, the respective graduation percentages for white and black students were compared employing the four-fifths rule for adverse impact, first proposed in the Federal Uniform Guidelines on Employee…

Since 2001, Congress has debated legislation that would offer a pathway to legal status for eligible unauthorized immigrants who arrived in the United States as children. And in 2012, President Barack Obama launched the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program that offers work authorization and relief from deportation for some such…

The problem is instructor engagement with first-generation medical assistant students is minimal, resulting in decreased graduation rates in medical assistant programs. The purpose of this qualitative descriptive study was to describe perceptions of instructors regarding how student-instructor relationships influence program completion with…

For the United States to regain the top ranking in the world for college degree attainment, Latinos will need to earn 6.2 million degrees by 2030. To reach the Latino degree attainment goal by 2030, the United States can close the degree completion gap by accelerating Latino completion while increasing for all students and scale up programs and…

The costs of attending four-year colleges and universities in the United States have steadily increased over four decades leading to high levels of student debt and many obstacles for low-income students. The analysis presented appraises the extent of the cost and affordability problems, debunking the sensationalistic claims that are common in…

Since 1979 more than thirty states have adopted "performance funding" for public institutions of higher education. Under performance funding, a portion of the state appropriations for each institution is determined by the institution's achievement of performance goals on such metrics as retention and graduation. We argue that several…

As students and educators head back for another pandemic-disrupted school year, the third and final edition of Quality Counts 2021 provides a broad perspective on the nation's K-12 system, with summative grades and scores for the U.S. and each state on a range of academic, financial, and socioeconomic indicators that underlie student achievement…

Higher education systems globally have seen major increases in women's participation and the overall trend in OECD countries has been a transition from the traditional male majority in enrolments to a substantial female majority. Prompted by a recent reversal of this trend, this paper explores gender differences in participation in higher…

As a supplement to "Completing College: A National View of Student Completion Rates--Fall 2011 Cohort" (2017), this report focuses on six-year student success outcomes and college completion rates by state. Three sets of tables organized by institution type display the results, presenting each state's outcomes for students who started…

Graduate programs in medicine and biomedical sciences have been severely impacted by the SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19 pandemic over the last 2 years. Following 2 years since beginning of the pandemic, data on student support, educational and academic performance as well as sentiment on changes to educational programs are starting to emerge. We performed…

The United States has a growing and young Latino population. While 18 percent of the overall population is Latino, 25 percent of students in K-12 education are Latino. Additionally, the Latino population is projected to increase by 25 percent by 2030. Furthermore, the median age for Latinos is 30, compared to 44 for White non-Hispanics. As more…

At the core of the Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education's (WICHE's) mission to ensure access and excellence in higher education for all citizens of the West, WICHE's 10th edition of "Knocking at the College Door" provides detailed data and projections of the number of high school graduates for the nation, four geographical…