Background
In Senate Bill No. 183 from the 1989 legislative session, Section 13 set up a program designed to evaluate the performance of individual schools and school districts in the state of Oklahoma. This program not only required multiple types of evaluation by the State Department of Education, but also required that the individual schools and districts be notified of these evaluations, and that the general public also be advised as to the “effectiveness” of individual schools or districts. In response to the directive of SB 183, the State Regents provide the following four reports; (1) High School to College-Going Rates for Oklahoma High School Graduates to Oklahoma Colleges; (2) Headcount, Semester Hours, and GPA Report; (3) Mean ACT Scores by Oklahoma High School Site; and (4) Developmental Education (Remediation) Rates for Oklahoma High School Graduates in Oklahoma Public Higher Education (beginning in 1995). In compliance with Senate Bill No. 183, the State Regents will transmit these data to the Office of Educational Quality and Accountability.
Analysis
The data describe 2013 Oklahoma public high school graduates who entered an Oklahoma college or university as first-time entering freshmen in fall 2013. It lists the following information by county, district, and high school site: (1) the number of high school graduates; (2) the number of high school graduates who went directly to college the following fall; (3) the number of high school graduates who went to college the following academic year; and (4) the number of high school graduates who entered college anytime in 2013-14, including those who delayed entry for one year or more.
For 2013, the SDE reported 35,815 students graduated from Oklahoma public high schools. Of those 17,782 or 49.6% entered an Oklahoma college or university the following fall. An additional 2% of the high school graduates entered in the spring.
High School to College-Going Rates Tables
2013 High School to College-Going Rates
Methodology
The data used to construct this summary come from two sources, the Oklahoma State Department of Education (SDE) and the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education. Beginning with the 2013 high school graduates, the SDE provides information on individual students from Oklahoma’s public high schools. These students are then tracked into the State Regents’ Unitized Data System (UDS) to determine which students entered college the following fall and/or the following academic year. In addition, the number of high school graduates who entered college anytime in 2013-14, including those who delayed entry for one year or more, is reported.
Caveat
The data displayed in this report are not complete in several respects. First, students from private high schools and home-schooled students in Oklahoma are not included in the SDE data. Second, the data provided by SDE for the current report was restricted to 2013 students who graduated within four years. Third, there are several private colleges and universities that do not participate in the State Regents’ Unitized Data System.
The report also does not track out-of-state students, nor does it include those students who received GEDs or dropped out of high school prior to graduation, but attended college as an adult or through admission to an “open-door” institution for which high school graduation is not required.For more information on high school to college-going rates, please contact Kathy Spengler at 405.225.9100 or kspengler@osrhe.edu.