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Overall Undergraduate Cohort

Undergraduate students can be either first-time students or continuing/returning students. First-time students can be further divided into first-time university students (those who has never attended university) and first-time transfer students (those who are transferring from another college or university). Like most universities, UWEST enrolls more first-time students in the Fall than in the Spring, though the university has some steady number of transfer students starting in the spring term.

Typically, in Fall, first-time students make up somewhere between 15 to 30% of total undergraduate enrollment. In the most recent term (Fall 2021), the university had 7 first-time university students (9%) and had 6 first-time transfer students (8%).

Understanding undergraduate student success

We use two metrics to understand undergraduate student success. The first metric is first-year retention rate, and the second metric is 4- and 6-year graduation rates. Both metrics are cohort-based metrics; that is, we identify a cohort or a group of students who begin their journey at a certain point in term and follow them for a certain period of time and see how many met a success metric, whether it is to stay enrolled after the first year (first-year retention rate) or it is to graduate within 4 or 6 years after starting university (4 or 6 year graduation rate). Because the two metrics are cohort-based metrics, it makes sense to analyze the first-time university students and the first-time transfer students separately. The first-time university students with no experience in postsecondary education are distinct from the first-time transfer students who have some postsecondary education experience. Thus, in what follows, they are analyzed separately.

Another student dimension that needs to be handled explicitly is students’ load status, whether student is full- or part-time. As the treemap below shows, the number of first-time undergraduate students who are part-time (as determined by their load at entry term) is very small at UWEST. Given this group’s size, it would not make sense to conduct a separate analysis for this group. In calculating the student success metrics, I will use the following approach:

  1. For first-year retention, both full- and part-time students are included since both groups are equally expected to persist into the second year.

  2. For graduation rate, part-time students will be removed from the cohort because they are expected to take longer than full-time students to complete their program requirements. Part-time student analysis can be done but will not be part of this reporting.

  3. The focus of this report will be on the Fall cohorts because that is the bigger cohort.

First-year retention rate

First-Time university Students

Overall

The first-year retention rate is the proportion of students, in this case, first-time university students, who persisted into the second year. To illustrate, in Fall 2016, UWEST had 20 first-time university students, and 55% (11) of them persisted to Fall 2017.

The first-year (YR1) retention rates of first-time university student (FTUS) averaged over the last 5 years and 3 years is 64% and 74% as shown in the grey and blue dotted lines.

The size of first-time university student cohort has changed quite dramatically over the last 5 years. It peaked in Fall 2017 with 46 students, and the last two years had less than 10 students. Additionally, the COVID emergency is likely to have negatively impacted retention rates. These two factors make drawing a firm conclusion difficult. However, the available evidence suggests that the YR1 retention rate of FTCS has improved in the latter part of the last 5 years compared to the former part, though it is worth noting that it is still lower than that of a public 4-year institutions like CSU.



Disaggregation by Demographics

To understand the difference among demographic groups, data were averaged over the last 5 years from Fall 2016 to Fall 2020 and plotted in the chart below. For ease of comparison, the dotted grey line indicates the overall YR1 retention rate for first-time university students averaged over the 5-year period.

In terms of gender, the difference is close to none. In terms of residency status, it is clear that international students persist at a much higher rate than the domestic or undocumented students. Among the domestic and undocumented students, the difference in terms of race and ethnicity is fairly stark. Even if we take into account of the fact that the number of White and Black students are very small (less than 5), White students are retained at 100% while Latinx and Black students are retained at 58% and 33%, respectively.

More detailed term-by-term data are provided below for reference.

Gender

Residency Status

Ethnicity

First-Time Transfer Students

Overall

The first-year (YR1) retention rates of first-time transfer students averaged over 5 and 3 years are 80% and 75%, respectively. Compared to the most recent CSU’s YR1 retention rates for transfer students from California Community College, the university’s rate is lower. Due to UWEST’s small cohort size, the rate tends to fluctuate year to year. Although this fluctuation makes it difficult to detect any clear trend, it is worth noting that the most recent retention rates is the lowest in 5 years at 55%. This is most likely due to the COVID emergency. The retention rates from Fall 2015 to Fall 2019 had remained relatively high at 73 to 88%.

Disaggregation by Demographics

Again, for ease of comparison, the dotted grey line indicates the overall YR1 retention rate for first-time transfer students averaged over the 5-year period.

In terms of gender, the difference is close to none. In terms of residency status, there is some evidence to suggest that international students have higher retention rates than domestic and undocumented students, a trend similar to that for first-time university students. In terms of race, the number of students are too few to draw firm conclusions. For example, compared to their peers Asian students and undocumented students have lower retention rates, but this may be due to the cohort size being too small.

More detailed term-by-term data are provided below for reference.

Gender

Residency Status

Ethnicity

Graduation Rate

First-Time University Students

Graduation rates are typically calculated for first-time university students after 4 and 6 years. Because some students transfer to other institutions to pursue other programs of study, which may be considered alternative successful outcome, the rate at which first-time university students transfer to other institution (transfer out rate) after 4 and 6 years are also computed.

Typically, these rates are calculated separately for full- and part-time students. So, I followed the standard practice to separate these two population out. However, UWEST has very small number of part-time first-time university students, so breaking out by dimension is less useful for UWEST.

Because the numbers of cohorts are small, disaggregation by demographic dimensions starts to become complicated. However, for the sake of completeness, I provide the data below.

Overall

Gender

Residency Status

Ethnicity

First-Time Transfer Students

Graduation rates can also be calculated for first-time transfer students. This can be calculated for 2 and 4 years since, presumably, transfer students already come in with completed college-level course work and do not need to take full 4 years to complete their degree program.

Typically, these rates are calculated separately for full- and part-time students. So, I followed the standard practice to separate these two population out. However, UWEST has very small number of part-time first-time university students, so breaking out by dimension is less useful for UWEST.

Because the numbers of cohorts are small, disaggregation by demographic dimensions starts to become complicated. However, for the sake of completeness, I provide the data below.

Overall

Gender

Residency Status

Ethnicity