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Outcome Trends of ‘Some College, No Credential’ Adults in America

ByBlake Decker

We are continuing our blog series where we explore data from an updated report by the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC) Research Center related to the “Some College, No Credential” adult population in America. Previous posts in our series have shown there were 2.6 million “Some College, No Credential” (SCNC) “working age” adults (18-64 years old) living in Texas out of approximately 38-million SCNC working adults across the United States in 2023. The NSC data also show how many of the SCNC working adults were considered “Recent Stopouts” or “Potential Completers”. Our previous post related to re-enrollment trends showed that Texas ranked second with 81,468 re-enrollees out of 2.64 million SCNC working adults, placing Texas 7th in terms of re-enrollment rate at 3.1%.

Our focus now moves into outcome trends for the SCNC adults who re-engaged with higher education after having stopped out for at least three consecutive terms. In the narrative and visualizations below, we look at perseverance and credentials earned data to better understand levels of success of the SCNC adult population at the national and state levels.

Perserverance Rates of SCNC Adults

According to the NSC, perseverance is determined by the continued enrollment of SCNC adults into a second academic year after they have re-enrolled in higher education. The perseverance rate calculations exclude students who “earned a credential during their first academic year of re-enrollment” as they are no longer considered SCNC adults (NSC Definitions).

  • The first visualization below shows that the national perseverance rate for SCNC adults who re-enrolled into a second academic year was 58.7% in the most recent year of NSC data. The state of Idaho had the highest perseverance rate in the NSC data at 69.5%, followed by Utah at 66.5%. In our previous post, Utah also led all states in terms of re-enrollment of recent stopouts at a rate of almost 23%, more than doubling the national average of 11.4%.
  • Across all states, Texas shared the 20th best perseverance rate with Virginia at 59%, which was slightly above the national perseverance rate of 58.7%.
  • In terms of comparison states, New York (62.8%), Georgia (60.4%), and Florida (59.3%) had higher perseverance rates than Texas, while North Carolina (58.8%), Michigan (58%), and California (53.5%) were lower than Texas’s 59% perseverance rate in the most recent NSC data.

Credentials Earned by SCNC Adults

The second visualization above shows how many SCNC adults earned a first credential during the first two years of re-engagement with higher education. In these data, a credential includes certificates, associate degrees, or bachelor’s degrees awarded as a first credential. NOTE: Hovering over the bar segments will show state-specific counts for credentials earned in each of the credentials earned categories in the NSC data.

The three bar segments represent different ways for classifying first credentials earned:

  • The dark gray bars to the left-hand side of the chart indicate what portion of first year, first credentials were awarded to SCNC adults without re-enrolling in higher education. By definition, “Students in this group earn credentials more than three full terms after their last enrollment and may include students who have needed to resolve administrative barriers or have received Reverse Transfer awards” (NSC Definitions Tab).
  • The light gray bars extending into the middle of each state’s data show the total “First Year, First Credentials Earned” by SCNC adults in the first year of re-engagement with higher education. The “Credential without Re-Enrolling” data are included in this first year total.
  • The color-filled bars to the far right show the combination of first credentials earned in both the first and second years of re-enagement/re-enrollment in higher education.

From the 2023 cohort, the NSC data showed that 145,501 SCNC adults earned a first credential during the first two years of re-engaging with higher education. Nationally, there were 54,794 SCNC adults who earned a first credential during their first year, as 12,933 SCNC adults across the US (or 24% of first-year awardees) earned a credential without re-enrolling in higher education. During the second year after re-enrolling, there were 90,707 SCNC adults who earned their first credential.

  • In the bullet chart above, California led all states in highest number of credentials earned. Out of the 6,818 first year, first credentials earned, 39.5% (2,690) of them were awarded to SCNC adults who did not re-enroll in higher education. Accounting for the 8,282 credentials earned during the second year, the two-year total for California was 15,100.
  • Texas was second to California in the NSC data. There were 3,655 first credentials earned during the first year, with 913 credentials earned by SCNC adults that did not have to re-enroll. These numbers equate to Texas having 25% of its first year, first credentials awarded to SCNC adults who did not re-enroll in higher education. Across the first two years in the 2023 data, Texas awarded 10,499 first credentials to SCNC adults, including 6,844 during the second year after re-enrollment.

So What?

The NSC’s success data for SCNC adults show a variety of interesting elements, especially when viewing state-by-state results. While not shown in the “Credentials Earned” visualization, three states awarded at least 40% of their first year credentials to SCNC adults that did not have to re-enroll in higher education in order to earn a credential: Connecticut (396 out of 650, 60.9%), Massachusetts (399 out of 870, 45.9%), and Michigan (462 out of 1,151, 40.1%), with California just below the 40% threshold at 39.5%. By comparison, Texas ranked 22nd with 25% (913 out of 3,655) of its first year credentials being awarded to SCNC adults without having to re-enroll. While Texas is just above the national average of 24%, one question that could be asked is, “What are others states doing in terms of maximizing reverse transfer policies that lead to these higher award rates, if that is an outcome desired across higher education in Texas?”

Another set of questions posed by the data above are related to the level of award and the academic fields in which these credentials are being earned. What proportion of the 145,501 first credentials earned across the US in the 2023 cohort year were certificates versus bachelor’s degrees? Which academic disciplines are the most popular in terms of SCNC adults earning their first credential? These threads of inquiry will be explored further in our next blog post.