Based on traditional federal data — specifically, from the U.S. Education Department’s Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS) — the “student success” rate at Tri-County Technical College (TCTC) in South Carolina doesn’t look so great. But when a new metric designed by the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond is applied, that rate rockets up — and it also sheds light on how much work that community colleges do to help their students isn’t collected in IPEDS, which is typically the go-to data on higher education.
Chesapeake College on Maryland’s Eastern Shore faces similar issues with its IPEDS rate compared to the Richmond Fed’s Survey of Community College Outcomes (SCCO) rate.
“A great deal of our student successes are overlooked with IPEDS data,” said Chesapeake College President Clifford Coppersmith.
The discrepancies occur because IPEDS doesn’t capture critical elements of community colleges. It only collects data on first-time, full-time students who start in the fall and seek a degree or certificate. It doesn’t factor part-time students, transfers, dual enrollments, non-credit work or students who enroll anytime during the academic year, among other components crucial to community colleges. In fact, IPEDS doesn’t include 40% of students at TCTC, at it only captures about 12% to 13% of all the students at Chesapeake College.
“That is a very limiting view on who two-year colleges serve across the nation,” said TCTC President Galen DeHay.
While that robust data is not reflected in IPEDS, it is included in the Richmond Fed metric.
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On Tuesday, the Richmond Fed released preliminary 2024 data based on 121 community colleges in the five states in its district — Maryland, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia, minus North Carolina, whose data will be available in early 2025. (The figures shared were based on about half of the colleges participating, with the final results expected to be announced in January.)
Richmond Fed officials hoped to have a side-by-side comparison with the latest IPEDS data, but their release has been delayed and is expected in the coming weeks. (For comparison, the 2023 IPEDS graduation rate for community colleges in the bank’s district is 29.1%.)
The overall 2024 SCCO student success rate is 47.5%; that’s lower than last year’s 51.8%, which was based on 63 colleges participating in the survey. Richmond Fed officials noted that the lower rate reflects the first cohort of students who started during Covid, which prevented many students from continuing their education.
While the overall rate is important, the breakdown of SCCO data shared on Tuesday is what painted how varied community colleges and their students are. The details presented during a webinar included success by state, rural/urban, full-time/part-time and more — with a further breakdown on degree attainment, certificates, workforce credentials, transfers and persistence for each category.
For example, two-year colleges in West Virginia have a 2024 SCCO rate of 37.6%, while South Carolina has a rate of 47.9%. However, West Virginia had a higher degree attainment rate than South Carolina (25% compared to 12%), while South Carolina had a higher transfer-prior-to-award rate than West Virginia (25% versus 4%).
Laura Ullrich, who heads the community college initiative at the Richmond Fed, observed that the figures illustrate differences in state policies, local economic and workforce demands, and more. In West Virginia, for example, many of the area jobs require just an associate degree, so students aim for that. South Carolina, meanwhile, has more jobs that require four-year degrees, and it has state policies that encourage baccalaureates, so more students aim to transfer to attain a baccalaureate, she said.
In the case of TCTC, the college has partnered for 19 years with nearby Clemson University in a unique program that allows its students to seamlessly transition to the university after one year. About 1,100 first-year students participate annually in the Bridge to Clemson program, with 83% completing their bachelor’s degree — mirroring the rate of students who start at Clemson, Dehay said.
Again, the success of students in the program is not reflected in TCTC’s IPEDS rate.
Richmond Fed plans to add five to 10 more colleges outside of its district to its 2025 survey. It hopes to finalize the expansion states by February, according to officials. The bank also aims to have a web dashboard and downloadable data for its 2025 survey data.
