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SBCTC Data Dashboards

This guide is to help faculty and administrative staff identify and navigate the data resources curated by SBCTC to enact reflection and institutional-level change.

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Green River College

  • eLearning Department
  • eLearning@greenriver.edu

Overview

Overview:

Higher education attainment leads to decreases in long-term poverty, higher personal per capita income, a higher state tax base, and a stronger economy (1). Students who receive their associates or bachelors degree can increase their average household income by 2.5-fold (2). The highest loss of students happens during the first year of college as they navigate new settings. Student retention is the student institutional return rate from one quarter to another, or from one academic year to another. Retaining students at the institutional level is important because not only are these students more likely to graduate due to credit momentum, but consistency in programs and advisors will ensure they will not have to repeat or take additional classes to earn their degree (citation). For institutions, retention loss affects financial trajectory as well, so can be an important metric to take note of.

How To Use This Dashboard:

The Retention Dashboard tracks student cohorts to examine retention percentages from Fall-->Winter, Fall-->Spring, and Fall-->Fall.. These data can be disaggregated on types of demographic data as well as cohort type and educational intent. Exploration of these diaggregated data can help faculty and staff identify the key predictive indicators of students who are less likely to persist. Automated alerts for students that align with these indicators can be used to target intervention strategies as can reminders for increased communication and check-ins with these students. Retention levels below the SBCTC average can indicate an institutional shortcoming in how students are being served, while high levels of retention are indicative of strong student support.

References:

  1. McMahon, W. W. (2000). Education and Development: Measuring the Social Benefits. Oxford University Press, London.
  2. Postsecondary Education Opportunity (2002). Average Household Income by educational attainment of householder, 2002. Retrieved May 5, 2004, from http://www.postsecondary.org/archives/Posters/AvgHshldIncbyEd02.pdf

Orientation

Cohort Selection

Annual cohorts may be disaggregated into subcohorts, allowing you to look at completion rates for specific student cohort populations.

✅ Example: These data look at all Black or African American students entering at either Tacoma CC or any college in the SBCTC system. We are examining the percentage of students, who are planning on transferring, and were enrolled in pre-college Math or English, that returned the following Fall after a Fall enrollment.

College Selection

If you want to explore the data for a specific college, select it here. Data will be presented on the left, while comparative data to the entire SBCTC system or peer cohort will appear on the right. Learn more about creating peer cohorts here.

✅ Example: These data look at all Black or African American students entering at either Tacoma CC or any college in the SBCTC system. We are examining the percentage of students, who are planning on transferring, and were enrolled in pre-college Math or English, that returned the following Fall after a Fall enrollment.

Educational Intent

You may optionally disaggregate data by educational intent as follows:

  1. Students that intend to transfer: these are students enrolled in academic transfer programs
  2. Students that intend to receive a professional/technical degree: these are students who may be enrolled in 1) Academic Non-Transfer programs, 2) Professional/Technical Programs, or 3) Applied Baccalaureate Programs
  3. Other: these are students who may be 1) upgrading job skills, 2) enrolled in multiple programs, or 3) taking vocational and/or family/life courses
✅ Example: These data look at all Black or African American students entering at either Tacoma CC or any college in the SBCTC system. We are examining the percentage of students, who are planning on transferring, and were enrolled in pre-college Math or English, that returned the following Fall after a Fall enrollment.

Retention Window

Choose what type of retention you'd like to examine. You can look at retention from Fall to Winter, Fall to Spring, and Fall to Fall.

✅ Example: These data look at all Black or African American students entering at either Tacoma CC or any college in the SBCTC system. We are examining the percentage of students, who are planning on transferring, and were enrolled in pre-college Math or English, that returned the following Fall after a Fall enrollment.

Demographic Disaggregation

Optionally, you may disaggregate the data based on certain demographic features.

✅ Example: These data look at all Black or African American students entering at either Tacoma CC or any college in the SBCTC system. We are examining the percentage of students, who are planning on transferring, and were enrolled in pre-college Math or English, that returned the following Fall after a Fall enrollment.

Intersectionality with Race/Ethnicity

These allows you to explore intersectionality between race and one of the other disaggregation features shown on the previous page, such as financial aid status, gender, etc.

✅ Example: These data look at all Black or African American students entering at either Tacoma CC or any college in the SBCTC system. We are examining the percentage of students, who are planning on transferring, and were enrolled in pre-college Math or English, that returned the following Fall after a Fall enrollment.

Choose Reporting Year

Years represent the cohort entry year and are displayed along the X-axis of the graph (bottom).

Next Steps

Question: 

What is the year-to-year retention rate for transfer-students at Tacoma CC compared to the SBCTC system? How does it differ for those placing into pre-college English or Math? How does it differ for students that identify as Black/African American?

Data:

This first data set answers the above question but shows the data for students of all ethnicities.

This second data set shows the same data but just that for students that identify as Black/African American. Comparing the two data sets, one can examine if the outcomes are consistent between Black/African American students and the student population as a whole.

Interpretation:

What we can say:

  • Tacoma’s year-to-year retention percentages are comparable to the SBCTC system as a whole.

  • Students are 10% less likely to be retained at TCC if they are enrolled in a pre-college English or pre-college Math class, although this is not true for the system, where rates are equivalent.

  • Black or African American students are 10% less likely to be retained than students on average at TCC if they are directly enrolling into college-level Math and English. They are retained at the same rate as the average student when enrolled in pre-college Math or English. These trends are similar in the SBCTC system as a whole.

  • Year-to-year retention rates have been increasing over the past five years for students that are entering into college-level Math and English. They appear to be modestly decreasing for those enrolled in pre-college Math or English.

Reasons for Retention Loss

Below highlights some of the many reasons (1) explaining why students may leave college during or after their first-year:

  1. Lack of institutional engagement
  2. Weak high school academic preparation
  3. Low college GPA
  4. Large number of developmental or remedial courses required
  5. Lack of financial aid
  6. Socioeconomic factors: age, generational status

Intervention Strategies

Many studies have shown that implementation of a mandatory or targeted college success course can improve student persistence, retention, as well as academic achievement in English and Math (2-4). These courses focus on helping students understand college expectations and essential academic information, learn how to appropriately use college technologies, identify campus opportunities and resources, and introducing them to the academic and life skills necessary for student success.

  • Check out the student success course created by Renton Technical College to explore what type of content is often included!
  • Early outreach programs (into high school or junior high) to develop students' academic competencies.
  • Create bridge programs that provide study on campus between high school and college
  • Orientation programs to ease the transition to college that contain academic strategies, social support, and information about campus life
  • Studies have created predictive modeling, based on student high school GPA, ethnicity, and first-term GPA to pre-emptively identify those at risk for non-retention. Such modeling can be used to target students for effective intervention strategies.
  • Providing informal and physical places for socializing to build student sense-of-belonging
  • Improve programs aimed at celebrating cultural diversity
  • Conduct exit interviews to understand why students may be leaving or what helped them in staying
  • Many students struggle to find affordable housing, transportation, childcare, and/or lack food security. Some may be facing mental health challenges. Create a boiler statement for your institution that instructors can insert into their syllabi that directs students to campus resources that could support them, such as a campus food bank, subsidized public transit, on-campus childcare, or campus-affiliated housing.
  • Adjust college infrastructure to create a "One-Stop Shop" for students seeking these resources.
  • The development of peer advising programs can improve the access of advising resources for students (5). Peer advisors can be partnered with small groups of at-risk students to encourage engagement in service and community learning, diversity/global learning experiences, learning communities, and undergraduate research via weekly or bi-weekly meetings. Peer mentorship can ensure students are appropriately connected to the career center, resources, and support to address different issues.
  • Monitor students for early warning signs and enact intrusive counseling/advising
  • Create automated alerts for students that align with at-risk indicators to target intervention strategies as can reminders for increased communication and check-ins with these students
  • When students are able to connect coursework to their lives, they are more likely to succeed (1). Increase inclusion of DEI-relevant topics into courses.
  • Create an accelerated study program to help students complete their degrees as quickly as possible, increasing their likelihood of doing so

References:

  1. M. C. Lopez-Wagner, T. Carollo, E. Shindledecker, Predictors of Retention: Identification of Students At Risk and Implementation of Continued Intervention Strategies. National Symposium on Student Retention, 10 (2013).
  2. K. Kimbark, M. L. Peters, T. Richardson, Effectiveness of the Student Success Course on Persistence, Retention, Academic Achievement, and Student Engagement. Community College Journal of Research and Practice. 41, 124–138 (2017).
  3. M. C. Lopez-Wagner, T. Carollo, E. Shindledecker, Predictors of Retention: Identification of Students At Risk and Implementation of Continued Intervention Strategies. National Symposium on Student Retention, 10 (2013).
  4. L. B. Klinkenberg, A Quantitative Analysis of a Mandatory Student Success Course on First-Time Full-Time Student College Academic Progress and Persistence. ProQuest LLC (2013) (available at http://ezproxy.umsl.edu/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=true&db=eric&AN=ED554191&site=ehost-live&scope=site).
  5. Habley, W. R. (2004). The status of academic advising: Findings from the ACT Sixth National Survey (NACADA Monograph No. 10). Manhattan: National Academic Advising Association.

Explore the types of questions you can ask using the retention dashboard!

 who are retained ?