People who started their college careers in the fall of 2008 at a Maryland public college or university crossed state lines to finish their first degree at a higher rate than those in at least 44 other states, says a Feb 24 report from the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center.
Source: National Student Clearinghouse Research Center
No data were reported for Delaware, Indiana, Rhode Island, or Alaska, but the only state with a higher reported percentage than Maryland’s mark of 11.24 percent was North Dakota, where 11.47 percent of students who started college at a public school in the state completed their first degree at a school in another state. Both Texas and California had rates lower than 2 percent.
Slice and sort the report yourself
We created a report showing where students who start college in the 46 remaining states complete their first degrees, as reported by the NSCRC.
This ad hoc report shows, and can be sorted by, the total completion rate, adjusted for out-of-state and multi-state completions; the percentage of students who finished their first degree at the school where they first enrolled; the percentage of students who finished their first degree at a different school in the same state as their original school; the percentage of students who finished at a school in another state; the percentage of students, usually small, who attended schools in more than two states to finish their first degree; and the percentage of students who had not completed their first degree by 2014.
Why do students go out of state?
I imagine the reasons why students start in one state and then transfer to out-of-state schools to complete their undergraduate degrees are as varied as the many degree programs those colleges and universities offer.
In a conference call with journalists, Afet Dundar of the NSCRC suggested that colleges and universities in states that show a high out-of-state completion rate may not be offering degree programs that fully meet the needs of students who enroll in schools in those states.
However, even North Dakota, which shows the highest out-of-state college completion rate, only has about one in nine students in this group. That strikes me as a small number.
Many states, including Maryland, seem to be tracking out-of-state completions adequately. The total six-year completion rate in the report is close to the statewide graduation rate given for the group of students who entered college in the fall semester of 2006, as reported by the Maryland Higher Education Commission.
Are you a student who started college in one state and then transferred to a school in another state to finish? If so, please explain to us why you crossed state lines to complete your degree by posting a comment to this article.
