Student Success Outcomes
In recent years, HLC has engaged in a series of research projects focused on defining and advancing student success. The results of these projects enhance HLC’s capacity to monitor and review institutional performance relative to student outcomes.
Evaluating Student Success Outcomes
2024–Present
In 2024, HLC launched a multi-phase project to improve our ability to track student success outcomes at member institutions. The outcome measures will be used for a number of important purposes:
- To identify concerns that require institutional attention or HLC follow-up.
- To identify opportunities for HLC to support institutions.
- To increase transparency with students and other stakeholders.
Phase 1: Educational Outcome Measures
In the first phase of this project, we will develop a process for evaluating institutions’ performance on three educational outcomes measures reported by IPEDS:
- First-year retention rate
- Graduation rate within 150% of normal time
- Completion and transfer rate at 8 years after entry to college
To identify benchmarks for these measures, we assigned institutions to peer groups based on their undergraduate enrollment profile and admissions selectivity. Then we identified benchmark values for each outcome measure based on the mean, standard deviation and lowest fifth percentile for each peer group.
To help ensure that the proposed benchmarks are appropriate for our membership, HLC will survey institutions that have at least one measure more than one standard deviation below the mean or within the lowest fifth percentile of their peer group. Responses received from these institutions will help us better understand the context, strategies and ongoing efforts made by institutions to address performance gaps in student success outcomes. We will use this information to finalize the benchmarking and evaluation process prior to formal implementation in spring 2025.
See Evaluating Student Success Outcomes: Phase 1 Update for full details about the peer groups and benchmarks, including HLC’s methodology and calculations.
Phase 2 Preview
HLC will begin planning Phase 2 of this project in summer 2024. The next phase will move beyond educational outcomes toward analyses of post-college labor market and other economic outcomes. This may include measures such as post-graduation employment rates, median earnings, federal loan repayment rates and median total debt after graduation, among others.
HLC is aware that institutions’ capacities and approaches to tracking these measures may vary greatly through our membership. We will work with institutions to identify and define measures for Phase 2, as well as to identify appropriate data sources.
HLC will keep institutions informed as we move forward with this project. If you have questions, please contact [email protected].
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