The study compared the Outcome Measures (OM) to the traditional Graduation Rates (GR) to ascertain if OM portrayed the performance of higher education institutions differently than GR and to determine which of the two metrics aligned better with accountability policy objectives. GR refers to the percentages of first-time, full-time students who…

Performance funding policies are politically popular, however research on performance funding has shown that these policies are ineffective and can have unintended negative consequences, particularly for lower-resourced institutions and underserved students. The purpose of this study was to determine if the Montana University System performance…

As part of the national agenda of accountability, state governments established performance funding policy to hold public institutions accountable for their performance. Accountability allows state policymakers to incentivize institutions to address state demands of increasing graduation rates in return for performance allocations. Although the…

This technical assistance paper provides policy and guidance to individuals with test administration responsibilities in adult education programs. The Florida assessment policies and guidelines presented in this technical assessment paper are appropriate for state and federal reporting. Therefore, guidance and procedures regarding the selection…

Rising college prices and student debt, the growth and collapse of online for-profit colleges, and expansions of federal grant, loan, and loan forgiveness policies have increased calls for more accountability in our higher education system. And there is significant consensus among lawmakers that the existing set of quality assurance policies for…

The Partnership for College Completion (PCC) was founded to "advance equity in higher education" by supporting colleges and universities to improve college completion for Black, Latinx, and Pell-eligible students--those groups that experience persistent disparities in completion. Simultaneously, PCC engages in state policy reform to…

The U.S. Department of Education introduced the four-year adjusted cohort high school graduation rate formula in 2008 to usher high school graduation in as a high-stakes accountability metric. This policy sought to address disparate graduation rates by student race but did not attend to systemic reasons why minoritized students had lower…

Public higher education leaders have entered 2024 aided by tailwinds of fiscal stability in many states and a strong national economy, but some challenges of the post-pandemic era remain, including strengthening the value proposition of higher education, building public trust, and meeting changing economic and workforce needs. This paper presents…

A continued gap exists in student achievement between Indigenous and non- Indigenous students in the British Columbia school system. This article analyzes the balance of success and failure of the Accountability Framework, a provincial program designed to increase graduation rates in the province. In order to understand the successes and failures…

The Texas Education Agency (TEA) prepares an annual report on graduates and dropouts in Texas public secondary schools. This report includes state summaries of the annual dropout rate, longitudinal graduation and dropout rates, and state attrition rates. In addition to statewide statistics, the report provides historical information about dropout…

This study illustrates a method for evaluating the accuracy of performance metrics and identifies potential institutional and student attributes that may increase the likelihood of classification errors. Longitudinal data were obtained from the Integrated Postsecondary Eduation Data System for public 4-year institutions (N = 558) to evaluate…

The federal government currently provides more than $150 billion each year to students and their families in the form of grants, loans, work-study funds, and tax credits to help make college more affordable. This sizable public investment in higher education has indeed made college attendance possible for a larger share of Americans. However,…

After decades of slow growth, the share of young Americans completing college has increased to 48 percent in 2019, from 39 percent 10 years earlier. What accounts for the rise? Are more students clearing a meaningful bar for graduation, or are colleges and universities engaging in credential inflation and lowering their academic standards? This…

Completing a college degree, or failing to, is a major factor in determining whether a person will have an economically stable future. While it might have been possible a few decades ago to graduate from high school, enter the job market, and find a career that enabled one to earn a solid middle-class life, that path to success has been almost…

Our 2023-24 Sponsorship Annual Report details our work providing monitoring, oversight, and technical assistance to ten schools across sixteen campuses that served approximately 6,300 students in Dayton, Columbus, Cincinnati, and Portsmouth, Ohio. We value this opportunity to share details about our work, and that of the schools that we sponsor.…