The Covid-19 pandemic appears to have brought several years of increasing numbers of undergraduates earning a degree or certificate to a standstill in 2019-20. That’s the main take-away from the Undergraduate Degree Earners Report just released by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
In the 2019-20 academic year, a total of 3.7 million undergraduates earned an associate’s degree, a bachelor’s degree or a certificate. That overall number represents no growth from the previous year.
However, there were substantial differences in the production of the different kinds of credentials.
- First-time associate degree earners dropped to their lowest level since 2012-2013. Associate degree earners decreased 3.9%, with most of that decrease occurring just a few months after campuses closed.
- Sub-baccalaureate certificate earners saw an even larger decrease at 5%.
- Offsetting that loss, first-time bachelor’s degree earners increased by 1.9% compared to the prior year. That’s equivalent to nearly 28,000 more graduates over 2018-19.
- Although the total number of graduates remained the same, first-time graduates decreased (-1%) while non-first-time completers, those earning second or what is often called “stacked” credentials, showed a healthy increase of 2.7%.
- That split is consistent with a trend that’s been apparent for the last eight years. Graduates with prior awards grew by nearly 170,000 students during that period, more than three times the number of first-time graduates (53,000 students) over that period.
- The number of first-time credential earners decreased across all age groups, with one exception - bachelor’s degree earners under age 25. The number of these traditional-aged bachelor’s degree recipients increased 2.9%, or 35,000 graduates, at the same time their older counterparts (age 25+) declined by 2.8%.
- For first-time associate degree and certificate earners, those aged 25-29 dropped a steep 7%, and even the number of traditional-aged (under 25) associate degree earners trended downwards for the first time since 2012.
If there was any good news in the report, it involved the fact that stacked credentials showed gains for all kinds of undergraduate pathways, even during the pandemic. Bachelor’s degree earners with prior associate degrees accounted for most of the 2.7% overall growth in graduates with stacked credentials. These students, who begin at a community college and then transfer to a four-year institution, increased 3.9% in 2019-20.
“This is the first time in the last eight years that we have seen a decline in the total number of students earning their first undergraduate credential, and it has been driven by drops in associate degree and certificate earners,” said Doug Shapiro, Executive Director of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
Coupled with other Clearinghouse reports this year - COVID-19 Stay Informed and Transfer, Mobility and Progress - these data are one more indication of the disproportionate effects the pandemic is having on almost all aspects of community college enrollment, progress and completion. And what’s more concerning, all the evidence points to a continuation of these trends for the foreseeable future.
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The Undergraduate Degree Earners report series, published annually by the Research Center, provides demographic and educational data for all students graduating with an undergraduate credential each year. The report’s appendix contains state-level and regional trends, as well as national graduate profiles by age and type of credential received.
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Covid-19 Has Slowed Growth In College Degrees To A Standstill - Forbes
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