Exploring the College Closures & Student Outcomes Dashboard

The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center and the State Higher Education Executive Officers Association (SHEEO) partnered on a three-report series “A Dream Derailed?: Investigating the Impacts of College Closures on Student Outcomes.”

The Research Center recently introduced an interactive College Closures and Student Outcomes dashboard that provides insights from the reports and enables a closer view of the impact of college closures on student education pathways.

The dashboard’s key features include:

• Closed Institution Characteristics: The dashboard provides completion rates by students impacted by a college closure, cross-referenced by reenrollment at a branch campus or a distinct institution. Users can filter data by institution sector (private vs public institutions) and institution size by student count. The findings demonstrate that students who reenrolled at a branch campus of their closed institution had higher completion rates than those who reenrolled at a distinct institution. These data can be found in Table 1.
• Some College No Credential (SCNC)-Closure Students: Table 2 in the dashboard allows users to juxtapose SCNC students impacted by a college closure compared to those not affected by a college closure. SCNC students are adults who left postsecondary education without a credential and are no longer enrolled. The dashboard shows that college closures make SCNC students less likely to return to postsecondary education.
• Potential Completer Status: The new dashboard also presents reenrollment rates of SCNC students who had completed at least two years of full-time enrollment (potential completer) versus those who had not completed at least two years of full-time enrollment when their institution closed (non-potential completer). Figure 3 compares SCNC students with and without closure experience by potential completer status. This comparison reveals that college closures negatively impact potential completers, reducing their reenrollment rates by nearly half.

“This study shows that any college closure is damaging to student success, leaving too many learners — more than half — without a viable path to fulfilling their educational dreams, “said Doug Shapiro, Executive Director of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. Through this new dashboard, the education community can continue the discussion on addressing the negative impact of college closures on students.

Visit the dashboard to learn more.

“This study shows that any college closure is damaging to student success, leaving too many learners – more than half – without a viable path to fulfilling their educational dreams.”

Doug Shapiro
Executive Director, National Student Clearinghouse Research Center

Additional Resources:

• Visit the College Closures & Student Outcomes dashboard
• Visit the SHEEO College Closures Project Website
• Visit the Clearinghouse’s Research Center