Higher Learning Commission

Ensuring quality education and advancing student success are central to HLC’s mission and the mission of all our member institutions. In recent years, we have worked extensively with our members to better understand how they define, measure and work to improve student outcomes.  

Starting in 2024, HLC will take this work one step further in launching a multi-phase project to improve our ability to track student success outcomes at our member institutions. In the first phase, HLC will evaluate three educational outcome measures that institutions report to IPEDS: fall-to-fall retention rates of first-time students, graduation rates within 150% of normal time, and outcome measures at eight years after entry. The measures selected for evaluation in this phase are well defined by IPEDS and widely used. HLC will obtain the data directly from the IPEDS Data Center.  

In later phases, HLC will evaluate other student success outcomes, which may include post-college labor market and loan repayment outcomes. We will work with institutions to identify these outcome measures and the appropriate data sources, such as the U.S. Department of Education’s College Scorecard and others. 

The student success outcome measures will be used for a number of important purposes:  

1. To identify concerns that require institutional attention or HLC follow-up.  
   In phase 1, HLC will develop a procedure to evaluate institutional outcome data in accordance with appropriate benchmarks and to identify concerns that require additional attention or monitoring. We will pilot the benchmarks and procedure in spring 2024 and fully implement them in spring 2025. 

2. To identify opportunities for HLC to support institutions.  
   HLC will analyze the aggregate institutional data and consider needs for new resources and programming on student success based on this data. 

3. To increase transparency with students and other stakeholders.  
   In phase 1, HLC will add a new section to each institution’s Statement of Accreditation Status that links to the institution’s profile on the College Scorecard and College Navigator, as well as student achievement data that the institution publishes on its website (as reported to HLC in the Institutional Update).  

See Evaluating Student Success Outcomes for more details about phase 1. 

HLC will keep institutions informed as we define benchmarks for IPEDS student success measures and develop future phases of this project. If you have questions, please contact This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..