Pathways to Postsecondary Completion: How Are Philadelphia Students Faring? October 2011

Table of Contents 1. Introduction ..............................................................................................................2

About this Report .....................................................................................................3 2. Data Findings ...........................................................................................................6 3. Preliminary Recommendations ............................................................................. 19

Moving Forward: Policy Recommendations .......................................................... 19 Moving Forward: Recommendations for Future Data Collection ......................... 20 Questions for Further Reflection ........................................................................... 22 Closing Thoughts .................................................................................................. 23

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1.Introduction “In order to be a truly great city, in order to be a true world-class city, in order to be a city of hope and opportunity, the new Philadelphia must be ‘The Education City.’” -Mayor Michael Nutter Since his inauguration, increasing college completion rates among Philadelphians has been an educational and economic development priority for Mayor Nutter and his administration. This agenda has drawn national recognition to Philadelphia as a city that is working across community stakeholders to improve college access at a time when the national focus on college completion is increasing. Many policymakers, funders, and local advocates recognize the importance of raising the education level of the American populace if the United States is to compete effectively in the global marketplace. The Obama administration and national foundations like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Lumina Foundation for Education have set forth public goals for increasing the number of Americans with college degrees, and even in these difficult economic times, they have made substantive investments in college completion. Reaching the broad and ambitious goals of the college completion movement requires finding a way to ground and focus conversations at the level of serving students. Across communities, data use has emerged as a key method of achieving this objective. Efforts like Complete College America are helping states to delve more deeply into their educational data, develop a clearer understanding of students’ college completion patterns, and ultimately identify strategies that can help localities, states, and the nation achieve stronger educational and occupational outcomes for young adults. Mayor Nutter, upon taking office, formed the Philadelphia Council for College and Career Success, a group with a vision to ensure that all Philadelphia youth are prepared for educational and economic success. The Council includes a range of leaders from the School District of Philadelphia, Philadelphia’s multiple colleges and universities, influential business organizations, research organizations, and members of the nonprofit provider community. The Council’s leadership team is comprised of three committees: Project U-Turn, which focuses on high school dropouts; WorkReady, which focuses on connecting education and employment; and CollegeReady, which is devoted to increasing college access and success. CollegeReady has been instrumental as the steward of the local college completion agenda, pushing data collection to the forefront in its efforts to support that agenda. These partners have employed the use of data to activate conversations about Philadelphia students’ college completion patterns and to create a stronger sense of accountability across all Council partners and in the community. Nationally about 20% of ninth graders graduate high school on time and go

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on to graduate college within six years. Philadelphia’s college completion rate is about half of that, creating even greater urgency within an already pressing issue.1 About this Report Most recently, a subcommittee of CollegeReady, the Data Workteam, spearheaded the development of a comprehensive set of common college metrics and a tool for collecting these data across colleges serving Philadelphia’s high school students. Twenty colleges submitted a first round of data in the summer of 2011 using this tool. This report offers data analyses from this data collection effort and seeks to provide answers to three critical questions: 1. What are the college access and success patterns of Philadelphia students, including

not only those who graduated from public (including charter) high schools but also from private and Archdiocese high schools, once they enter college?

2. What are the specific points of progress and challenge for students from Philadelphia high schools as they move from the application process through developmental education coursework and toward graduation?

3. How do patterns for students from Philadelphia high schools compare to students

from non-Philadelphia high schools? Section 2 of this report provides an overview of our Data Findings, which OMG developed in partnership with the CollegeReady Data Workteam’s senior leadership. We used the Loss-Momentum Framework2 developed by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation to organize these findings and explore the success and loss patterns of students from Philadelphia high schools across four key junctures in their college experience:

Connection: This reflects students’ success in the college admissions process and includes the following indicators: number of applications, number of acceptances, and number of students who enrolled.

Entry: This reflects students’ placement and outcomes in developmental education coursework and includes the following indicators: number of students who took developmental education courses in English and math and those who passed developmental education courses in English and math.

1 To date, data use in Philadelphia has focused primarily on analyses of National Student Clearinghouse data provided by the School District of Philadelphia and also through research conducted by the OMG Center, supported by the John S. and James L. Knight Foundation. The full OMG report, College Access and Success in Philadelphia: College Enrollment Activity can be found online at: https://knight.box.net/shared/lv3eiqg542. 2 The Loss-Momentum Framework was designed by the Completion by Design Assistance Team at the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The Completion by Design initiative is a five-year investment by the Foundation to enable groups of community college campuses in several states to collaborate on the design and implementation of a model pathway to completion. For the full framework, see the Technical Appendix.

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Progress: This reflects students’ movement through credit-bearing coursework and includes the following indicators: number of students who completed their first and second semesters, those who completed their second year, and those who were in good academic standing and/or on track to graduate after two years.

Completion: This reflects students’ graduation from college and includes the following indicators: the number of students graduating in four years or in six years.

In the final section of this report we present some Preliminary Recommendations and offer some ideas about how to move forward with policy and data activities. In addition, we pose a series of questions to further the conversation around these data so that the Council and the community can continue to generate ideas about what these data mean for policy and data collection moving forward. Throughout the report, we include a series of Technical Notes with information about the data in this report, highlighting how we conducted our analyses, as well as some of the challenges and limitations to data interpretation.

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Introductory Technical Notes The Mayor's Office of Education requested data from 30 local and statewide colleges and universities for this study, including public and private, as well as two-year and four-year institutions, and received analyzable data from 20 diverse institutions. These participating institutions submitted information about seven freshman cohorts entering college between 2003 and 2009, tracking their progress from the application process through graduation to the extent possible. The 2003 cohorts across the colleges, for example, offer longitudinal data from first-year students' application submissions to six-year completion rates. In addition, colleges provided disaggregated information across these indicators specifically for students from individual Philadelphia high schools. Given that not all colleges provided data for all indicators, this report does not always present data for the same cohort (i.e., the same groups of colleges and universities) from connection through completion. In order to maximize the data, we made decisions about what institutions to include in our analysis on the basis of which ones had complete data in any one of the four Loss-Momentum areas: connection, entry, progress, or completion. In other words, the groups of colleges and universities included in analyses may be different across each phase. It is always noted throughout the report which institutions are included in any given analysis. Because the data were provided in the aggregate, individual-level progress, such as success in one step of the pathway in relation to a previous step, could not be assessed. The primary focus of this report is the postsecondary success of Philadelphia high school graduates. Thus, we present data on most indicators for the cohort of students coming from Philadelphia high schools only. Many colleges provided comparable data on students entering from non-Philadelphia high schools as well, and we use those data to present some comparative findings of students coming from Philadelphia versus non-Philadelphia high schools. Community colleges represent a unique postsecondary experience and, as such, the data from the community college in our study (Community College of Philadelphia) were analyzed separately. For a complete list of participating colleges and universities, a full overview of the metrics collected and their definitions, and a description of the student population, see the Technical Appendix.

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2.DataFindings The key findings of our analysis are the following:

The number of college applications is rising faster than acceptance and enrollment figures.

Developmental education course requirements are high for Philadelphia students entering college, especially at the community college.

Getting through the first semester and the first year of college are not the only critical retention points for students; students may also be losing ground even after completing their second year. Academic challenges may explain only a portion of the loss of Philadelphia students from college.

Many Philadelphia students are taking more than four years to complete college. Colleges of different selectivity (e.g., very competitive, competitive, non-competitive) tend to enroll Philadelphia students from certain high school types (e.g., special admissions, parochial, and neighborhood). Differences exist between the college success patterns of students from Philadelphia versus non-Philadelphia high schools.

Each of these findings is described in more detail below. In addition, we highlight some questions for further reflection based on preliminary conversations with local postsecondary leaders and some of the research-based strategies included in the Loss-Momentum Framework introduced earlier.

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The number of college applications is rising faster than acceptance and enrollment figures.

The number of applications to colleges increased between 2003 and 2009, but the degree to which this led to an increase in acceptances and enrollments was more moderate. Over the six-year period, the number of college applications from Philadelphia high school students steadily increased. The large increase in applications, however, did not produce a significant corresponding increase in acceptances or enrollment. Figure 1 shows that from 2003-2009, college applications increased by 61% (an additional 6,752 applications), acceptances increased by 22% (an additional 1,394 acceptances), and there was a 15% increase in enrollments (an additional 307 students).

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Figure 1: Total number of applications, acceptances, and enrollments from 2003 to 2009 among 2003 through 2009 first-fall entering student cohorts from Philadelphia high schools

Note: No application or acceptance data are from CCP because CCP has non-competitive enrollment.

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In other words, for every 20 additional applications submitted, there were approximately four additional acceptances and one additional enrollment (Figure 2).

Questions for Further Reflection: 1. What is driving the increase in applications: more students applying or more

applications per students?

2. Why hasn’t the increase in college applications led to a greater rise in acceptances and subsequent enrollments?

Note: Rates were calculated by dividing the number of increased applications and acceptances by the number of increased enrollments.

For every 20 additional applications from Philadelphia high school students from 2003 to 2009,

There were approximately 4 additional acceptances,

and 1 additional enrollment.

Figure 2: Change from 2003 to 2009 in applications, acceptances, and enrollments among 2003 through 2009 first-fall entering student cohorts from Philadelphia high schools

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Developmental education course requirements are high for Philadelphia students entering college, especially at the community college.

Over 23% of Philadelphia students entering four-year institution were placed or enrolled in remedial course work in math and/or English. Placement and enrollment of students from Philadelphia high schools in developmental education math and English courses remained steady from 2006-2009, with about one-third of students from Philadelphia high schools requiring English remediation and about one-fourth requiring math remediation (Figure 3).

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*Colleges represented in developmental education analyses: Math: Bloomsburg, Chestnut Hill, Holy Family, Indiana, Lock Haven, Millersville, Shippensburg, Slippery Rock, Temple English: Bloomsburg, Chestnut Hill, Holy Family, Millersville, Moore, Shippensburg, Temple, UArts Note: Developmental education course data prior to 2006 were unavailable.

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Figure 3: Placement/enrollment rates in math and English developmental education courses at select four-year colleges* among 2006 to 2009 first-fall entering student cohorts from Philadelphia high schools

% placed  in English 

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At CCP, an even higher percentage of students enrolled in developmental education coursework; more than half of entering students enrolled in English and/or math developmental education courses. Between 2006 and 2009, on average, 83% of students entering CCP from Philadelphia high schools required developmental education courses for English and 63% for math (Figure 4). Developmental education enrollment at CCP was over 40 percentage points higher than at the four-year colleges.

Across four-year institutions and CCP, developmental education enrollment rates were higher for English than for math. In addition to enrolling more often in English than math courses, students were more likely to pass English courses. Students passed English courses on average 91% of the time versus 76% of the time for math at four-year colleges; at CCP, students passed English courses on average 45% of the time versus 41% of the time for math.

Questions for Further Reflection: 1. What are some of the differences among students enrolling in four- and two-year

institutions that might be driving higher developmental education course rates at CCP?

2. What is driving higher developmental education enrollment and pass rates in English versus math and what are the policy implications at both the K-12 and college levels?

3. How does placement and success in developmental education courses impact students’

performance in introductory college-level coursework and their prospects for completing college?

Figure 4: Placement/Enrollment rates in math and English developmental education courses at CCP among 2006 to 2009 first-fall entering cohorts from Philadelphia high schools

% placed  in English 

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3 Getting through the first semester and the first year of college are not the only critical retention points for students; students may also be losing ground even after completing their second year.

Students are equally likely to be off the pathway to six-year completion after their second year of college as before their second year of college. Twenty-three percent of students left college before completing their second year; however, an additional 25% of students failed to complete college after six years (Figure 5).

Questions for Further Reflection: 1. To what extent do changes in progress numbers represent students leaving college

versus simply not being on track to a four- or six-year graduation but still enrolled?

1. Among those students who leave college or are at risk of not completing, what connections might exist between why and when a student falls off the pathway to graduation, and how might strategies be targeted for students falling off track at different points on the college continuum?

*Colleges represented: Bloomsburg, East Stroudsburg, Indiana, La Salle, Lock Haven, Millersville, Moore, Peirce, Shippensburg, Temple, UArts, West Chester **Completed first four consecutive semesters and earned minimum GPA to be considered in good academic standing at individual institution ***Completed first four consecutive semesters and earned enough credits to enter third fall as a junior

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retained fall 1 to fall 2 (i.e., returned for a 2ndspring semester)

completed at least 1 course credit in firstsemester

Figure 5: Proportion of first-fall students from Philadelphia high schools who matriculated into select colleges* in 2003 and persisted and met graduation milestones from first semester through to four- and six-year graduation

23 percentage point drop from entry to end of second year

25 percentage point drop from end of second year to 6‐year graduation

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4 Academic challenges may explain only a portion of the loss of Philadelphia students from college.

Only half of students at four-year institutions who persisted through their second year accumulated enough credits to be on track to a four-year graduation. Although 70% of students completed their first two years of college in good academic standing, a vast majority of those still enrolled after two years, only half of those students had accumulated enough credits to enroll as juniors in their third year of college (see Figure 5 on previous page). Questions for Further Reflection: 1. What is driving the low percentage of students who are on track to graduate in four

years after the second year?

2. What are the different student support strategies or institutional policy changes that can help students to pursue and stay on a four-year, or alternatively a six-year, track to graduation?

Technical Notes It is important to note that our analyses of progress and completion in Findings 3-5 do not include data about the number of students that transfer to other institutions. The inclusion in our data of students who transfer could explain some of the drop-off observed along the progress continuum. From a study conducted by OMG in 2010 (see earlier footnote), we know that 32% of Philadelphia public school students attending college enrolled in more than one college, representing either transfers or concurrent enrollment (e.g., taking summer classes at a different institution).

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Among Philadelphia students completing college, many are taking more than four years to complete.

A little over a quarter of the students in this study graduated in four years, and approximately an additional quarter graduated within six years. Six-year graduation rates were almost twice that of four-year graduation rates. Twenty-eight percent of students who entered four-year institutions from Philadelphia high schools in 2003 graduated in four years. The number of students who graduated in six years was nearly double (52%), representing an additional 24 percentage points of graduated college students (Figure 6).

The difference between six-year and four-year graduation rates is particularly pronounced among “very competitive” colleges. The difference overall between four-year and six-year graduation is 24 percentage points, whereas within “very competitive” institutions, the difference is 31 percentage points (24% of students who entered “very competitive” colleges from Philadelphia high schools in 2003 had graduated by 2007 [in four years], and 55% had graduated by 2009 [in six years]). By comparison, the difference between four-year and six-year graduation rates at “competitive” colleges was 19 percentage points (30% and 49%, respectively). (Figure 7).

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on‐time graduation 6‐year graduation

Figure 6: Proportion of first-fall students from Philadelphia high schools who matriculated into select colleges* in 2003 and graduated in four and six years

*Colleges represented: Bloomsburg, East Stroudsburg, Indiana, La Salle, Lock Haven, Millersville, Moore, Peirce, Shippensburg, Temple, UArts, West Chester

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Questions for Further Reflection: 1. What is the impact on students of taking six years versus four years to graduate?

2. How are college-level policies impacting students’ longer time to graduation and/or

supporting students who take longer?

Figure 7: Proportion of first-fall students from Philadelphia high schools who matriculated into select colleges* in 2003 and graduated in four and six years from “competitive” and “very competitive” colleges

*Colleges represented: Competitive: Bloomsburg, East Stroudsburg, Indiana, La Salle, Lock Haven, Millersville, Moore, Peirce, Shippensburg, USciences, West Chester; Very Competitive: Temple, UArts

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Colleges of different selectivity (e.g., very competitive, competitive, non-competitive) tend to enroll Philadelphia students from certain high school types (e.g., special admissions, parochial, and neighborhood).

Non-competitive college (CCP) enrollees from Philadelphia came disproportionately from neighborhood and citywide public schools compared with other college selectivity types. In 2009, across all of the college enrollees in this study from Philadelphia, 22% were from neighborhood and citywide high schools; however, at CCP, 48% of Philadelphia students were from these school types (Figure 8).

A higher ratio of “competitive” college enrollees from Philadelphia came from Archdiocese high schools compared with other college selectivity groups. Across all of the Philadelphia graduates attending college in this study, 30% were from Archdiocese schools; however, 36% of the Philadelphia students attending “competitive” colleges were from Archdiocese high schools (Figure 8).

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Figure 8: First-fall student enrollment in colleges and universities, by college selectivity group and high school type, in 2009.

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     N=814          N=1239          N=118            N=1168          N=27       TOTAL=3,366

Note: The stacked colors represent the high school types from which the students graduated prior to their college enrollment. Includes all colleges in the study except Peirce and UPenn because of incomplete Philadelphia high school enrollment data.

Total percent of first-fall student enrollment

High School Type 

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Philadelphia special admissions high school graduates in this study enrolled at a higher proportion in “very competitive” colleges compared with other college types. Across all of the Philadelphia graduates attending college in this study, 22% were from special admissions high schools; however, 39% of the Philadelphia students attending “very competitive” colleges were from special admissions high schools. (See Figure 8 on page 17.) Philadelphia charter high school graduates enrolled in “competitive” and non-competitive colleges in similar proportions to their overall representation in the study sample. Charter school graduates made up a relatively small part of this sample overall, 11%. Twelve percent of the Philadelphia students attending “competitive” colleges and 13% attending non-competitive colleges were from charter schools. (See Figure 8 on page 17.) Questions for Further Reflection: 1. What is there to learn from the patterns of students enrolling in certain college types

from specific high school types?

2. What are the reasons that pathways to certain college types are different across different high school types?

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The data suggest that differences exist between the patterns of students from Philadelphia versus non-Philadelphia high schools.

In 2003, students from Philadelphia high schools had marginally lower acceptance rates than non-Philadelphia students, but very slightly higher enrollment rates. In 2003, students from Philadelphia high schools were accepted about 6% less often than students from non-Philadelphia high schools; however, enrollment rates of students accepted from Philadelphia high schools were two percentage points higher. This suggests that Philadelphia students enrolled more often in colleges that accepted them (Figure 9).

Although Philadelphia and non-Philadelphia students enrolled at near equal rates, developmental education course requirements were much higher among Philadelphia students. Trends show that once enrolled, more Philadelphia high school students required developmental education courses in English and math than their non-Philadelphia counterparts; the differences were 20 percentage points higher in English and 13 percentage points higher in math in 2005 (Figure 10).

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Figure 9: Connection and entry patterns among students from Philadelphia versus non-Philadelphia high schools, 2003 fall entering cohort

Note: Acceptance rate is the percent of applicants who were accepted. Enrollment rate is the percent of accepted students who enrolled. The Technical Appendix provides a list of the colleges included in each analysis.

Acceptance rates were 6 percentage points lower among Philadelphia students

Enrollment rates were 2 percentage points higher among Philadelphia students

Connection

Math developmental education course enrollment rates were 13 percentage points higher among Philadelphia students

English developmental education course enrollment rates were 20 percentage points higher among Philadelphia students

Entry

Figure 10: Developmental education course enrollment and pass rates among students from Philadelphia versus non-Philadelphia high schools, 2005 fall entering cohort

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Both four-year and six-year graduation rates were lower among Philadelphia students at four-year colleges than among non-Philadelphia students. Philadelphia students’ four-year graduation rates were 24 percentage points lower than those of non-Philadelphia students, and six-year graduation rates were 23 percentage points lower among students enrolled in four-year colleges (Figure 11).

Questions for Further Reflection: 1. What practices are in place at colleges for supporting Philadelphia students’ progress

across the entire college continuum?

Technical Notes Our comparison of Philadelphia versus non-Philadelphia student patterns includes a smaller number of colleges than the other analyses since fewer colleges provided non-Philadelphia student data. As for the analyses of Philadelphia students above, the colleges that provided data on connection, entry, and completion are different for each step in the progression, making comparisons across the continuum challenging. The Technical Appendix provides a full overview of which colleges included both Philadelphia and non-Philadelphia data that were used in our analyses.

Figure 11: Completion rates among students from Philadelphia versus non-Philadelphia high schools, 2003 fall entering cohort

Four-year graduation rates were 24 percentage points lower among Philadelphia students

Six-year graduation rates were 23 percentage points lower among Philadelphia students

Completion

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3.PreliminaryRecommendations As a community that seeks to build its profile as a city working to address its low rates of educational attainment, Philadelphia is poised for greater economic, cultural, and community development. However, to meet this important charge, Philadelphia stakeholders will need to continue to connect the mayor’s ambitious goal of doubling the number of Philadelphians with college degrees to the ground-level work that leads to real changes for students in the community. We hope that the data presented in this report can help to do just that, guide new conversations about policies and practices as well as future data collection efforts that can lead to action in the community. Below, we offer some preliminary but concrete policy and data recommendations for moving forward, as well as a series of questions for refining and generating new ideas among Council members and in the Philadelphia community. Moving Forward: Policy Recommendations

Data Findings Policy Directions

Connection Student applications are rising faster than acceptances and enrollments.

1. Identify opportunities across K-12 and postsecondary partners for increasing not only Philadelphia student applications but also corresponding enrollments

Entry Developmental education course requirements are high for Philadelphia students entering college, especially at the community college.

2. Explore strategies at the K-12 and postsecondary levels to minimize the burden of developmental education as a barrier

Progress

Getting through the first semester and the first year of college are not the only critical retention points for students; students may also be losing ground even after completing their second year.

3. Target persistence strategies to students dropping off after completing a second year

Academic challenges appear to explain only a portion of Philadelphia student drop off once in college.

4. Consider and address non-academic reasons for student loss

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Policy Recommendations (cont’d)

Completion Among Philadelphia students completing college, many are taking more than four years to graduate.

5. Design policies that help more students graduate within four years

6. Ensure that policies, particularly financial aid policies, support longer times to graduation when appropriate

High School Type

Colleges of different selectivity tend to enroll Philadelphia students from certain high school types.

7. Identify the reasons why these primary pathways exist (e.g., academic preparation, recruitment policies)

Philadelphia vs. Non-Philadelphia

Differences exist between the patterns of students from Philadelphia versus non-Philadelphia high schools.

8. Identify particular strategies that have been successful in targeting the needs of Philadelphia students

Moving Forward: Recommendations for Future Data Collection Although we have identified some key findings and some possible policy implications and directions in this report, one of the most important next steps out of this effort will be to improve data collection and analysis moving forward. As with any new data collection, a crucial element of this process has been not only learning from the content of the data, but also identifying some of the specific challenges in collecting and analyzing these data. This first round of the Council’s data collection uncovered some key challenges around (1) individual institutional research capacity, (2) shared interpretations of data definitions, and (3) data interpretation. These types of challenges are typical of multi-system data collection efforts. Developing a common set of indicators for collection across independent institutions is an iterative process; refinements need to continue to be made if these data are to inform policy changes and drive effective improvement strategies and practices in a meaningful way. We have developed a series of recommendations that we hope can help strengthen these data efforts in the future. Add additional variables: Information about introductory college-level (credit-bearing) coursework (e.g., Gateway Math and English classes) would add opportunities for additional analyses.

• Although information was available about developmental education course enrollment and pass rates, the degree to which this led to students’ enrollment in introductory college-level coursework versus additional developmental education courses could not be determined.

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Strengthen areas in which data were missing: Less complete developmental education and non-Philadelphia student data limited the ability to analyze and draw firm conclusions about these points along the pathway to completion. Only 11 of 20 schools in the study provided developmental education data on their Philadelphia students for both Math and English, and only seven schools provided such information about non-Philadelphia students. This represented fewer schools than in our other analyses. Collect additional years of data: Although we highlight areas to strengthen this data collection, the data from the original template suggested many trends. However, the most recent data in this study was from the 2008-2009 academic year. Information from the 2009-2010 and 2010-2011 academic years will be particularly useful in order to explore significant contextual influences like the economy that may have had an impact in the most recent years. Collect student-level data: A longer-term goal for this effort might be to collect and analyze data at the student level. The collection of data at the school level limited the ability to track the progress of individual students across the college continuum. For example, from the data in this study, it could not be determined whether an increase in applications across colleges represented an increase in the number of students applying or an increase in the number of applications per student. Likewise, bivariate and multivariate analyses, which could highlight associations between demographic factors and the outcomes in this study, can only be conducted with student-level data. Furthermore, without student-level data, we cannot track the impact of transfer patterns on these data. Without the ability to match students across colleges, we cannot determine if a student enrolling initially in one college graduates from another college. Finally, student-level data would offer the opportunity to link School District of Philadelphia, Archdiocese, and Independent high school data and answer additional questions about the connection of students from the K-12 to the postsecondary education system. Align metrics with those of Complete College America: Complete College America is a national nonprofit working to increase the number of Americans with a college degree and to close degree attainment gaps for traditionally underrepresented students. In July 2010, the National Governors Association (NGA) adopted the Complete College America Common Completion Metrics, highlighting the importance of consistent data to document the progress and success of postsecondary students across all states. Having a commensurate set of metrics from Philadelphia would signal Philadelphia’s willingness to align with this national agenda, and would allow for higher-quality data reporting and use to drive policy.

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Questions for Further Reflection A key focus of this report is to present data in a way that can contribute to new conversations across the community. For all of our findings, we posed a number of questions for further reflection that arose during the analysis process and during ongoing conversations with Council members. We have compiled these below. Throughout the community, we hope that these questions can help make the data presented in this report actionable and drive partners toward an aligned, multi-sector response in supporting students’ degree attainment once in college. 1. What is driving the increase in applications: more students applying or more

applications per students?

2. Why hasn’t the increase in college applications led to a greater rise in acceptances and subsequent enrollments?

3. What are some of the differences among students enrolling in four- and two-year

institutions that might be driving higher developmental education course rates at CCP?

4. What is driving higher developmental education enrollment and pass rates in English versus math and what are the policy implications at both the K-12 and college levels?

5. How does placement and success in developmental education courses impact students’ performance in introductory college-level coursework and their prospects for completing college?

6. To what extent do changes in progress numbers represent students leaving college versus simply not being on track to a four- or six-year graduation but still enrolled?

7. Among those students who leave college or are at risk of not completing, what connections might exist between why and when a student falls off the pathway to graduation, and how might strategies be targeted for students falling off track at different points on the college continuum?

8. What is driving the low percentage of students who are on track to graduate in four

years after the second year?

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9. What are the different student support strategies or institutional policy changes that can help students to pursue and stay on a four-year, or alternatively a six-year, track to graduation?

10. What is the impact on students of taking six years versus four years to graduate?

11. How are college-level policies impacting students’ longer time to graduation and/or supporting students who take longer?

12. What is there to learn from the patterns of students enrolling in certain college types

from specific high school types?

13. What are the reasons that pathways to certain college types are different across different high school types?

14. What practices are in place at colleges for supporting Philadelphia students’ progress across the entire college continuum?

Closing Thoughts In order to reach Mayor Nutter’s goal of doubling the baccalaureate attainment rate of Philadelphians by 2017, the partners in this work will need to explore the questions outlined above and develop policies to address the challenges that the data reveal. Furthermore, college-specific strategies that have improved access and completion outcomes for students do exist in the community, and offer learning opportunities for other colleges. Improving and standardizing the use of data across Pennsylvania colleges will help institutions to maximize the successes and better understand the challenges, while enabling better tracking of changes in college outcomes over time. The Council for College and Career Success, with its representatives from a variety of stakeholder groups, has an opportunity to facilitate the alignment of college success strategies among colleges and between the K-12 and postsecondary system. The data suggest that strategies to help students progress through the first years of college and persist through to college completion need to be diverse and adaptable, addressing academic, financial, and students’ life circumstances. Employing a holistic approach that includes curriculum alignment, adequate financial aid offerings, and targeted student advising services will be essential for achieving the Mayor’s college completion goal for Philadelphians and for positioning Philadelphians to succeed in a world that increasingly demands a college-educated workforce.