Educational Attainment Trends

General

Developing 20/20 Vision on the 2020 Degree Attainment Goal: The Threat of Income-Based Inequality in Education, PDF, (May 2011), Pell Institute

Using the Obama goal for 2020 of being the world leader for population with a college credential, this report illustrates the current position for the U.S. compared to other industrialized countries. Identifying income-based inequality as a factor contributing to high school and college completion gaps, the report recommends that our country aggressively implement a set of reforms and policies that focus on the students, schools, teachers and communities that need the most assistance.

Educational Attainment in the United States: 2010 (Apr. 2011), U.S. Census Bureau

The latest report provides more detail than in previous years. Highlights include the increase in the percentage of adults 25 and older with at least a high school diploma — rising from 84% in 2000 to 87% in 2010. Among the population 25 to 29, 36% of women had a bachelor’s degree or higher, compared with 28% of men.

Educational Attainment by Degree-level and Age-Group (American Community Survey) 2008, National Center for Higher Education Management Systems

The interactive graphs and maps provide data from 2005 to 2008 regarding several areas of educational attainment. Policy implications and definitions are included.

A Stronger Nation Through Higher Education (Feb. 2010), Lumina Education Foundation

This report explains Lumina's goal to have 60% of Americans hold two- or four-year college degrees by 2025. It includes standing by state. "In Minnesota, only 39% of the state’s 2.6 million working-age adults (25-64 years old) hold at least a two-year degree, according to 2000 Census data. The numbers are better for young adults, with 45% of Minnesota’s 25- to 34-year-olds holding degrees. However, 662,000 working-age adults — 26% of those in the workforce — have already earned some college credit. By focusing first on these residents, officials and educators should be able to make relatively rapid progress toward increasing the state’s college-attainment rates."

With Their Whole Lives Ahead of Them: Myths and Realities About Why So Many Students Fail to Finish College (Dec. 2009), Public Agenda

“The conventional wisdom is that students leave school because they aren’t willing to work hard and aren’t really interested in more education. What we found was almost precisely the opposite. Most are working and go to school at the same time, and most are not getting financial help from their families or the system itself. It is the stress of this juggling act that forces many of them to abandon their pursuit of a college degree.”

Latinos and Education: Explaining the Attainment Gap (Oct. 2009), PEW Research Center

"Nearly nine in ten Latino young adults say that a college education is important for success in life, yet only about half that number say that they themselves plan to get a college degree.... The biggest reason for the gap...appears to come from financial pressure to support a family, the survey finds."

High School Dropout and Completion Rates in the United States: 2007 (Sept. 2009), National Center for Education Statistics

"The average freshman graduation rate which provides an estimate of the percentage of public high school students who graduate with a regular diploma four years after starting 9th grade, was 73.2% for the class of 2006. Students living in low-income families were approximately 10 times more likely to drop out...approximately 3.3 million 16-24-year-olds were not enrolled in high school and had not earned a high school diploma or alternative credential."

On Track to Complete? A Taxonomy of Beginning Community College Students and Their Outcomes 3 Years After Enrolling: 2003–04 Through 2006 PDF (July 2009), National Center for Education Statistics

"Roughly half of community college students complete a credential or transfer to a 4-year college after 6 years. In contrast, nearly two-thirds of students who begin in a 4-year institution complete a bachelor’s degree in the same time period" (executive summary).

Minnesota Measures 2009 (May 2009), Minnesota Office of Higher Education

Among states, Minnesota ranks favorably on several key educational measures such as high school graduation rates and the percentage of the state's citizens who possess college degrees.... While Minnesota excels in some areas, more often it performs at or near the national average on indicators important to the state's educational and economic vitality.

Enrollment in Postsecondary Institutions, Fall 2007; Graduation Rates, 2001 and 2004 Cohorts; and Financial Statistics, Fiscal Year 2007 (Mar. 2009), National Center for Education Statistics

In fall 2007, there were 18.7 million undergraduate and graduate students enrolled in Title IV institutions (those participating in federal student financial aid programs). About 73 percent of the 2.8 million full-time, first-time undergraduates received some type of financial aid. The graduation rate of all 2001 cohort students enrolled in a bachelor’s degree program was 36% after four years and 57% after six years.

Measuring Up 2008, The National Center For Public Policy and Higher Education

Minnesota is above the national average but below the top states (receiving an "A" grade) in high school completion, the percentage of young adults enrolled in college and those earning bachelor's degrees. However, there are substantial gaps in college opportunities with 37% of black college students graduating with a bachelor’s degree within six years of enrolling, compared with 63% of whites. On affordability, Minnesota is one of 49 states given an "F" in the report.

High School Graduation (2008), Twin Cities Compass/MN Department of Education

Use the interactive graph to view high school graduation by Minnesota region, county, racial and ethnic group and more.

"All residents of Minnesota need, at minimum, a high school education. Very few jobs exist for people who do not graduate from high school. However, the loss is not just theirs; to grow, our region needs workers with skills beyond high school. Lack of a high school diploma puts an individual at greater risk for poor health, lower lifetime earnings, unemployment and welfare, and prison."

Engaging Higher Education in Societal Challenges of the 21st Century (April 2008), National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education

"Higher education has two fundamental responsibilities to help ensure the continued well-being of the nation today: to provide graduates and the nation at large with the skills needed to be effective in a global, increasingly competitive economy, in which corporations reach across nations and geographical divides in search of new markets, more efficient production, and less costly labor; and to close the achievement gap between those students in this country who are advantaged—educationally, culturally, and economically—and those who are not….The particular focus of this essay, however, is the role of public policy and the focusing of institutional effort in meeting the nation’s growing need for higher education."

Global Trends

The Spaces Between Numbers: Getting International Data on Higher Education Straight (Nov. 2009), Clifford Adelman, Institute for Higher Education Policy

All countries are getting better at producing data reflecting their higher education systems' enrollments and degrees awarded. Research organizations are increasingly making comparisons using these data to highlight triumphs and deficiency. However, different countries data are often not comparable. Adelman warns that international comparisons should be made with caution, focusing on the popular OECD "Education at Glance" reports,

Education at a Glance 2009: OECD Indicators (Sept. 2009), Organisation of Economic Co-operation and Development

This annual report presents information on education systems in 30 countries. College participation rates at full-length (more than 3 years) institutions in the U.S. are 65% compared to the OECD average of 56%. The U.S. graduation rate of 37% is below the OECD average of 39%. In 1995, the U.S. ranked second in completion, now it's 14th.

2009 Education for All Global Monitoring Report (Dec. 2008), UNESCO

This year's edition of this report, "Overcoming inequality: why governance matters," warns that ‘unacceptable’ national and global education disparities are undermining efforts to achieve international development goals. It notes that "one in three children in developing countries (193 million in total) reaches primary school age having had their brain development and education prospects impaired by malnutrition...75 million children of primary school age are not in school....Whereas over a third of children in rich countries complete university, in much of sub-Saharan Africa, a smaller share completes primary education — and just 5% attend university level."

International Student Assessment (2006), Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD)

The United States is, however, well below the best in terms of student achievement…In the 2003 OECD Programme for International Student Assessment (PISA), the performance in mathematics of 15-year old students in the United States was well below the OECD mean, ranking the United States in a tie for 21st place with Poland, Hungary and Spain and ahead of only Portugal, Italy, Greece, Turkey and Mexico.

(Click on graphic to view at larger size.)

Source: Minnesota Private College Research Foundation analysis of data from Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development and Census Bureau.