The College Progression by Graduating Class report shows how Michigan students are progressing in postsecondary education after graduating from high school.
The report includes enrollment and awards (certificates, 2- and 4-year degrees) earned at in-state, out-of-state and most private/independent colleges and universities. Graduate-level enrollment statuses and awards beyond 4-year degrees are not counted in this report.
For any given high school graduating class, the report displays a stacked status bar for each year that has elapsed (up to eight) after the high school graduation year. Each status bar shows the number and percent of students in the following postsecondary enrollment/credential statuses:
- First Year, First Time
- Continuing in College
- Earned Certificate
- Continuing After Certificate
- Earned 2-Year Degree
- Continuing After 2-Year Degree
- Earned 4-Year Degree
- No Longer Enrolled and No Award
- No Record of College Enrollment
While students can potentially have several statuses within a school year, earned degree statuses take precedence, followed by continuing statuses.
An accompanying data table includes an additional item not reflected in the graph: Earned Award – Certificate or Degree (Subtotal). This highlighted row displays the number and percent of high school graduates who have earned an undergraduate certificate or degree, including those who may be continuing their education.
The report is updated in early spring. See the Recently Posted Reports page for when the report was last updated.
Historical Changes
- Beginning with the 2018-19 school year, independent colleges with TIP or PELL grant recipients began reporting in the STARR Collection. Because of this change, independent colleges may be more frequently represented in the data than in prior years, which may result in trend changes.
- Prior to the 2018-19 school year, NSC data were also used to supplement colleges participating in the STARR Collection. Beginning with 2018-19, NSC data are only used to locate data for out-of-state or non-STARR participating schools. This may result in trend changes.
- Data for Hispanic and Two or More Races report categories have been removed because of a data quality concern for high school graduation years 2010-11 through 2013-14.
Use the Location and Report Settings to select a location, high school graduation year and report category. Categories include race/ethnicity, gender, economically disadvantaged, English learners, homeless, migrant, and students with disabilities.
See the MI School Data Quick Start Guide for the basics of navigating the site and customizing a report.
Location Options
Locations Setting options: Statewide, ISD, District and School
Logged-in Users
Users with secure access who are logged in can see unsuppressed numbers for the entities for which they have been specifically authorized.
CEPI and the National Student Clearinghouse collect the data used to complete this report. The databases used include:
- CEPI’s Student Transcript and Academic Record Repository Collection in the Michigan Student Data System, to locate awards earned at Michigan community colleges or universities. For more information on the MSDS application and reporting rules, please see the STARR Data Collection Manual and/or the MSDS Collection Details Manual on the CEPI website.
- The NSC StudentTracker database, to locate enrollment and awards from out-of-state or non-STARR participating colleges or universities.
High school graduates identified in the MSDS are matched against the STARR Collection and national college enrollment data from the NSC StudentTracker. Michigan acquires StudentTracker records by a matching process which includes the first name, middle name, last name, suffix, and date of birth. If a student’s name or date of birth in the StudentTracker database don’t exactly match the state’s graduation record, a match may not be made. Another limitation is that most, but not all, colleges and universities provide data to NSC. Both situations can result in lower totals.
The report includes public high school graduates who have exited high school and subsequently enrolled in college. Because the report is limited to following high school graduates into colleges that participate in either STARR or NSC StudentTracker, there may be some unaccounted colleges and universities.
Students simultaneously enrolled in high school and post-secondary courses (dual-enrolled or Early/Middle College students) will appear once they graduate high school. In the event a dual-enrolled student earns an award with accumulated credits their first year post-high school graduation, their enrollment status will equal the award or degree earned.
Students can only be reported in one enrollment status per school year, defaulting to earned awards statuses if a student chose to continue after earning an award, but then did not receive a higher award. For example, in Year 3 a student may be counted in the Earned Certificate group, and in Year 4 the Continuing After Certificate group. If in Year 5 the student is not continuing, their record will revert back to the Earned Certificate group.
College enrollment numbers might not always align across reports on MI School Data. This is because the data were updated at different times. The numbers best reflect what was available at the time of the run of the report.
If you have questions not addressed here or in the linked resources, please contact CEPI customer support at cepi@michigan.gov.
Disclosure Avoidance
To protect the privacy of individual students, CEPI applies data suppression rules to sensitive data when report settings would yield fewer than 10 students in a given group. Complementary groups may also be suppressed. In some cases, values less than 10 may be shown when there is no risk of identifying individual students. Secure users can log in to view unsuppressed data for their authorized location. Please see How CEPI Protects Education Data for more information.
Report Labels
See the glossary for additional terms and acronyms used on MI School Data.
First Year, First Time: The first year of a student’s postsecondary enrollment after graduating from high school. Students who have previously been enrolled in a postsecondary institution are not included in this count.
No Longer Enrolled and No Award: A student who has previously been enrolled in a postsecondary institution but is no longer reported as enrolled, and did not receive a certificate or degree.
No Record of College Enrollment: A student who has never been reported as enrolled in a postsecondary institution.
Data Calculations
% [Enrollment/Credential Status]: Total count of students in the enrollment or credential status category / Total high school graduates in the selected HS graduation year and report category
