Northwest College acing retention and completion rates

Posted 3/19/19

A series of efforts on the part of Northwest College leaders appear to be helping to keep students enrolled and working toward the completion of their degrees.

NWC’s retention rates are …

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Northwest College acing retention and completion rates

Posted

A series of efforts on the part of Northwest College leaders appear to be helping to keep students enrolled and working toward the completion of their degrees.

NWC’s retention rates are outperforming those of the state’s six other community colleges, according to figures that Institutional Research Manager Lisa Smith presented at the NWC Board of Trustees meeting earlier this month.

Additionally, completion rates are at all-time highs for the college.

Of the first-time students who entered NWC in the fall of 2017 and were seeking a degree or certificate, 60 percent of the full-time students were either still enrolled or had graduated by the fall of 2018.

“That was the highest retention rate in the state,” Smith said, and a few percentage points above the average for all community colleges in Wyoming.

For part-time students in the same category, there was only a 25 percent retention rate. That figure was among the lowest in the state, but Smith noted it was based on data from only 20 NWC students.

“I’d take it with a gain of salt,” she told the board.

Maintaining success

In fall 2017, there were 1,693 students enrolled at NWC, of which 953 were full time. The retention rates don’t include all those students, however, as students enroll in college for a variety of reasons. In the interest of developing useful data, retention rates are based on first-time, degree-seeking students starting in the same semester. This specific group is then broken down by full- and part-time students.

“A student who already has a master’s degree and is taking one PE class for personal enrichment has different goals than a student who has come to college for the first time and plans to earn an associate’s degree,” Smith said, speaking after the meeting. “There are many other types of students as well.”

Smith attributed the above-average rates for full-time students to initiatives the college has taken over the past several years, aimed at easing impediments to incoming students’ success or maintaining their success as they complete their studies.

The efforts include course maps to help students choose what classes to take, an advising center that coordinates internships and peer mentoring and incentives to maintain enough credit hours to finish degrees in four semesters.

NWC President Stefani Hicswa explained after the meeting that she’s had a passion for retention since doing an undergraduate thesis on the topic 30 years ago. She said the programs are based on national research showing the interventions are effective.

“They work because they give students one-on-one focus and direction to meet the needs of their personal situations,” Hicswa said. “We find that students need help navigating the various pathways to a degree.”

The institution has maintained higher retention rates for eight of the past 10 years, which are comparable to national averages.

Completion rates

For the fall 2014 cohort — the most recent data available — NWC’s completion rate was 39 percent. While that was the fourth-highest rate in Wyoming for that cohort, the state has exceptionally high college completion rates. Nationally, completion rates are about 23 percent for comparable institutions.

“Moving the needle just one point is difficult. A completion rate of 39 percent is outstanding,” Hicswa said.

Hicswa said she’d like to see more students completing their degrees before they transfer to four-year institutions. She said there’s numerous benefits to doing so, and data shows students transferring from NWC to UW complete their degrees sooner.

“All the more reason to start at Northwest,” Hicswa said.

For nine of the past 10 years, NWC had completion rates at or above the state average.

At the March board meeting, Smith also spoke of another measure of completion success at the meeting, noting a high ratio of degrees per faculty and staff. Between the 2017 to 2018 enrollment period, the college awarded 28.5 degrees for every 100 full-time employees. That was the highest in the state.

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