College Productivity

National Overview
For years, the United States has led the world in the percentage of adults possessing a college degree. This leadership has propelled the national economy to unprecedented levels, harnessing knowledge to drive innovation and improve social mobility. But the nation’s competitive advantage is slipping away:

• According to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), the United States now ranks tenth among industrialized nations in the percentage of 25 to 34-year-olds with an Associate’s degree or higher, and stands as one of the only nations where older adults are more educated than younger adults.
• OECD data also show that the United States ranks near the bottom of industrialized nations in the percentage of entering students that complete a degree program.
• According to the U.S. Census, disparities in educational attainment persist across racial and ethnic groups, even as the nation’s population becomes more diverse. Today, 42 percent of whites ages 25-64 have an Associate’s degree or higher, compared with 26 percent of African Americans and 18 percent of Hispanics.

Looking ahead, the United States will have to ramp up just to keep up when it comes to degree production. The National Center for Higher Education Management Systems (NCHEMS) estimates that the nation will produce approximately 48 million new undergraduate degrees between 2005 and 2025, assuming no significant change in degree completion patterns. According to this analysis, the United States needs to produce approximately 64 million additional degrees over this period to match leading nations in the percentage of adults with a college degree (estimated at 55 percent) and to meet domestic workforce needs - a gap of 16 million degrees. Because demographic trends point toward substantial growth in populations historically underserved in higher education - African Americans and Hispanics in particular - this looming degree gap cannot be filled without a strong commitment to erasing racial and ethnic disparities in educational attainment. NCHEMS estimates that increasing the percentage of adults with college degrees among African Americans and Hispanics to that of whites would produce more than half of the degrees needed to fill the projected gap.

The View From The States
The compendium of key indicators presented here gauges each state’s readiness to face the future. The conclusion that emerges is that while states vary greatly in their current and projected performance in producing a college-educated population, all states must address educational and demographic challenges in order to compete in the world that is taking shape.

A College-Educated Population - Today and Tomorrow
As other nations increase their educational capital and our economy changes, states need to focus on expanding college participation and completion:

• Currently, only eight states are on track to reach the level of educational attainment needed by 2025 to compete with best-performing nations and meet workforce demands. For those states, staying on track will require closing significant gaps in college participation and completion rates across racial and ethnic groups.

A Changing Demographic Picture
Additionally, states face demographic changes between 2005 and 2025 that will pose challenges for expanding the percentage of their adult population with college degrees:

• All states are projected to experience growth in their non-white populations, particularly among groups that have been historically underserved in higher education (African Americans, Hispanics, and Native Americans).
• In half the states, the number of adults ages 18-24 is not projected to grow, meaning that efforts to increase degree production in those states will have to focus on older adults.
• One-third of the states are projected to experience no growth or a decline in the number of adults ages 25-44, which increases pressure on these states to increase college participation and completion among other segments of the population.
• All states are projected to experience significant growth in the number of adults ages 65 and older, which will likely place greater demands on public resources.

Educational Attainment by Race and Ethnicity
To increase their levels of educational attainment, states must make increasing equity in access and success a top priority:

• All states currently face disparities across racial and ethnic groups in the percentage of adults with college degrees. In many states, the groups expected to grow the fastest between 2005 and 2025 are the same groups that currently post the lowest levels of educational attainment.
• A significant portion of the adult population in most states has some college experience but no degree, particularly within non-white groups, which suggests an area of focus for increasing degree attainment.

Student Progress To and Through College
Key indicators show that states must focus on sealing leaks in the educational pipeline to increase the share of the population that has a college degree:

• In more than half the states (29), the four-year graduation rate for public high schools is below 75 percent.
• In 10 states, fewer than half of the high school graduates enroll in postsecondary education within one year, which reduces the likelihood of enrollment, persistence, and completion.
• Higher education systems in most states can improve their rate of degree production.

Currently, only two states award more than twenty degrees per every 100 full-time equivalent students enrolled at public two-year institutions, and only eight states award more than twenty degrees per every 100 full-time equivalent student at public four-year institutions.

**Source: Adding It Up, Executive Summary, p. 2-3