UPDATES ON EDUCATION RESEARCH AND POLICY

This blog highlights key takeaways from the Missouri Students’ Postsecondary Success Report. We find:

1. About half of in-state FTFT college students complete any postsecondary credential at a Missouri public IHE within six-years.

2. Students encounter multiple steps during college on the pipeline to degree completion; our analyses reveal that students exit at each of these steps.

3. FTFT in-state student persistence varies substantially by the racial composition of the high school students attend, with students from high schools serving the highest percentages of Students of Color persisting at the lowest rates.

4. Some of the largest disparities in FTFT in-state student postsecondary completion occur by the level of income of high schools with students from the lowest income high schools seeing the lowest rates of any degree completion.

5. Remediation rates for FTFT in-state college students at Missouri public IHEs has improved from 2010-2019.

This blog highlights key takeaways from the Missouri Students’ Postsecondary Access Report. We find:

1. Immediate college enrollment declined by 7 percentage points in Missouri between 2011 and 2019, while national enrollment increased by 2 percentage points over the same period.

2. Enrollment at 4-year institutions has remained stable, but enrollment at 2-year institutions has declined as the percentage of students entering the workforce has increased.

3. Missouri’s highest-income students are more likely to enroll in postsecondary education, while Missouri’s lowest-income students are the least likely to enroll in postsecondary education.

4. Missouri’s FAFSA completion rate is 14 percentage points below the national rate, signaling that many of Missouri’s students are not accessing financial aid to afford postsecondary education.

5. After the state ended its ACT testing policy, over 9,000 fewer students had access to the test.