Learn how to use the Postsecondary Data Partnership Retention/Persistence Term-to-Term dashboard to measure the impact of Pell Grants on transfer-in student retention/persistence rates.
Transcript
In this tutorial, we demonstrate how to use the PDP Retention/Persistence Term-to-Term dashboard to measure the impact of Pell Grants on transfer-In student retention/persistence rates.
The Retention and Persistence Term-to-Term dashboard reports the retention and persistence rates for student cohorts after each term during their first two academic years for up to eight consecutive terms. This data may reveal stop-out behavior during a student’s first two academic years. Stop-out is when a student fails to enroll in one term but re-enrolls at a later term. At the institution level, stop-out behaviors result in enrollment declines for a term and increases in the following term.
What is the difference between retention and persistence?
Retention describes how many students are still enrolled at or have earned a credential from your institution per term. This is a measure of how well your institution retains students and highlights at what point students are dropping out or transferring.
Persistence describes how many students are still enrolled at or have completed a credential at another institution per term. This definition may differ from how your institution defines persistence. Check with your institution’s PDP administrator if you have questions about how your institution defines persistence.
Let’s use this dashboard to answer this research question:
For students who transferred into our institution during the spring term of 2018, what was the impact of Pell Grants on their long-term retention and persistence?
Before we can answer this research question, on the Retention and Persistence Term-to-Term dashboard, we need to set our filters. To do that click “Edit” on “Chart Settings”. First, we need to filter our dashboard to only include transfer-in students, so for “Enrollment Type”, choose “Transfer-In”, and click “Apply Settings”.
Next, since we are interested in students entering in the spring term, let’s change the “Cohort Term” to “Spring”.
Then, since we’re interested in the spring term of 2018, we need to set the Cohort to 2017-18.
And, finally, since we are interested in whether those students who are still in college, regardless of where they are enrolled, or have completed a credential, let’s set the Retention/Persistence filter to “Retention/Persistence”.
Before we continue, let’s find this population’s retention/persistence rate for the fall 2016 term. To do that, let’s count the terms across: Term 1 is Spring 2018, Term 2 is Summer 2018, Term 3 is Fall 2018, Term 4 is Winter 2019, Term 5 is Spring 2019, Term 6 is Summer 2019, Term 7 is Fall 2019, and Term 8 is Winter 2020.
Hovering over Term 7, which is the Fall 2019 data point, we see that 88.7% of the spring 2018 transfer-in student cohort are still enrolled in college or have completed a credential.
Now, let’s examine how Pell Grants might affect retention/persistence rates. To do that, click “Edit” which opens “Chart Settings”. Then, change “Dimension” to “Pell Grant Recipient” and click “Apply Settings”.
Now there are three lines in our line chart – one representing students who have not received Pell Grants, one representing those who have received Pell Grants, and one for those whose Pell Grant status is unknown. To remove the data for students whose Pell Grant Recipient status is unknown,click on the “Edit” button which opens Chart Settings. Then click on the “Pell Grant Recipient” filter, and deselect “Unknown”, and click on “Apply Settings”. This makes our charts easier to read.
Looking at the line chart, we find an interesting pattern. For the spring, fall, and winter terms across both years, there is virtually no difference in retention/persistence rates based on Pell Grant status.
But for Terms 2 and 6, which represents Summer 2018 and Summer 2019, we find that transfer-in students who received Pell Grants retain/persist at lower levels than transfer-in students who did not receive Pell Grants.
To help understand why transfer-in students who are also Pell Grant recipients retain at lower rates during summer terms, we could conduct a survey to find out if other activities, like working at a paying job, are keeping those students from enrolling in summer classes compared to transfer-in students who are not Pell Grant recipients.
We encourage you to explore your institution’s results in order to identify student populations who might need additional support.
Thank you for joining us.