{"id":20088,"date":"2020-09-15T16:00:39","date_gmt":"2020-09-15T16:00:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.tamus.edu\/data-science\/?p=20088"},"modified":"2023-02-28T23:01:18","modified_gmt":"2023-02-28T23:01:18","slug":"ihe-enrollment-trends-hs-graduates-direct-enrollment","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tamus.edu\/data-science\/2020\/09\/15\/ihe-enrollment-trends-hs-graduates-direct-enrollment\/","title":{"rendered":"IHE Enrollment Trends: HS Graduates Direct Enrollment"},"content":{"rendered":"\t\t
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IHE Enrollment Trends: HS Graduates Direct Enrollment<\/h1>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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In our previous post, broad trends related to K-12 enrollment and high school graduates were explored at both the national and state of Texas levels (IHE Enrollment Trends: K-12 and HS Graduates<\/a>). The national data showed that the growth in high school graduates during the past few decades began flattening with the 2013 graduating class, before a projected spike in 2025 with a dramatic fall-off through the mid-2030s. The story for high school graduates in Texas is different than the national context, with Texas predicted to lead the nation with an increase of more than 56,000 high school graduates from 2014 to 2032. These trends have led to Texas being in the top-3 for negative net-migration of first-time-in-college students in the past decade. In\u00a0fall 2018, the number of in-migration students coming to Texas increased to 16,923, while the out-migration of Texans swelled to 32,276, leaving Texas with a negative net-migration of\u00a0<\/span>-15,353<\/span><\/span>.<\/span><\/span><\/p>

This post extends the previous presentation by examining direct enrollment\u00a0of high school graduates in Texas\u00a0<\/span>at Texas public and independent institutions, and comparing the state-level trends to what is occurring nationally.<\/span><\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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High School Graduation Trends<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Two of the primary sources for nation- and state-level trends in high school graduates are the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES,\u00a0Digest of Education Statistics<\/a>) and the\u00a0Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education (WICHE,Knocking at the College Door<\/a>). B<\/span>oth of these entities track historical data for high school graduation counts and rates using data available from NCES, and they both postulate predictions for how many students will graduate in the future (NCES<\/a>, WICHE<\/a>).<\/p>

Based on data from the Texas Education Agency (TEA<\/a>), Texas high schools graduated\u00a0292,636<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0students during the 2011-2012 academic year, while\u00a0355,615<\/strong><\/span>\u00a0Texans graduated high school during the 2018-2019 academic year. This increase in less than a decade represents a\u00a021.5-percent<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0growth in the number of high school graduates in Texas. As shown in the figure below, when compared to the projections made by NCES and WICHE, Texas has exceeded projections by both entities in each of the last three years, and has been above the NCES projections since 2015.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\"Texas\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t
Texas is out-pacing predictions for high school graduates<\/figcaption>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/figure>\n\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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Direct Enrollment in Texas IHEs<\/h2>\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t
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While Texas is leading the nation in the growth of high school graduates, there is another trend that should be more disconcerting to higher education stakeholders: the\u00a0decreasing percentage of direct enrollment <\/b>of Texas high school graduates into Texas public institutions of higher education (IHEs).\u00a0The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) recently updated data tracking graduates from Texas high schools to IHEs in the state with fall 2019 data. As defined by THECB, “Data for Texas high school graduates from each academic year, that enrolled in Texas public or independent higher education in the following fall, are provided by high school county, school district, and high school” (Texas Higher Education Data<\/a>). In order for a high school’s data to be included in the THECB data, the high school must have more than 25 graduates in a reporting year. This definitional difference results in slightly different data from what TEA reports.<\/p>

In the figure below, you can see that both the number of high school graduates and the number of direct enrollees in Texas have increased, albeit at different rates. The THECB data, which include high school graduates who can be tracked into the following fall semester post-graduation, shows that high school graduates have increased from 262,984<\/span><\/strong> in 2010 to\u00a0328,816<\/span><\/strong> in 2019, a\u00a025-percent<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0increase. The number of high school graduates who directly enroll in Texas public colleges and universities has increased from\u00a0146,490<\/span><\/strong> in 2010 to\u00a0167,394<\/span><\/strong> in 2019, a\u00a014-percent<\/span><\/strong> increase.<\/p>\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t\t\t\t<\/div>\n\t\t<\/section>\n\t\t\t\t

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The THECB data<\/a>, which are disaggregated by high school campus, district, and county, show the number of students from each high school who enroll in a Texas public or independent college or university, as long as there are more than 5 students from that high school enrolling in the specific IHE campus. All instances where a high school campus has fewer than 5 enrollees are aggregated into the “Other Public\/Independent 4-yr Institution” or\u00a0“Other Public\/Independent 2-yr Institution.” The count of students who do not enroll in a Texas public IHE, but have a standard, trackable identification number, are aggregated into the “Not found” category.<\/p>

The figure below shows the last decade of\u00a0THECB<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>data “binned” into three categories: Not found, 2-Year Institutions, and 4-Year Institutions. For each\u00a0category, the total is superimposed in the center of the respective bar segment, as the annual total across all three categories is the aggregation of the three segments. Broken out by category, the changes from 2010 to 2019 are as follows:<\/span><\/p>

Not found<\/b><\/u><\/span><\/p>