“The best way to maintain enrollment is to keep the students that came to your college and help them finish their studies.” – Christos Giannoulis
“We found that students who came in seeking a CTE credential are leaving, even though they succeeded in their first term. We just have to figure out how to offer them the right programming at the right time.” – Nichole Jackson
Valencia College is an open-access, community-serving college with an expansive vision: to provide “opportunities for academic, technical and life-long learning in a collaborative culture dedicated to inquiry, results and excellence.” Since its founding in Orlando, Florida, in 1967, the scope and scale of those opportunities have grown and today, the school enrolls about 65,000 students in 130 programs each fall. One in four students at the University of Central Florida began their studies at Valencia, and the school’s estimated economic impact on the region is $1 billion annually.
Yet like many community colleges, far more students enroll at Valencia than complete their intended course of study. A new Strategic Impact Plan aims to expand access by local high-school students while also raising the transfer, graduation, and credential completion rates. In keeping with the institution’s founding commitment to serve students of all races, equitable attainment that mirrors the region’s population is an explicit focus. Valencia aims to award 12,000 high-quality career credentials annually by 2030, with at least 50 percent earned by Hispanic students and at least 25 percent by Black students, to reflect the region’s population. Such credentials validate professional skills and training, are portable across employers and regions, and help workers build a financially sustaining career over time.
That raises the question: how best to do that? Previous studies have identified a suite of supports that can help community-college studies persist through academic programs. But less is known about career and technical education (CTE), in part because institutions don’t track why students pursue it and whether they meet their own goals for success.
A new data toolkit at Valencia measures CTE program success based on student outcomes and their intended course of study when they enroll. It was designed by a pair of SDP ECMC Foundation CTE Fellows: Dr. Christos Giannoulis, Senior Institutional Research Analyst in the Department of Analytics and Reporting, and Nichole Jackson, Director of Learning Assessment in the Department of Academic Affairs. In the 2022-23 school year, provosts throughout the institution will be briefed on the toolkit and use its insights as part of Valencia’s improvement plan.
“It’s not that we don’t have graduation rates at the college, not that we didn’t have a lot of detailed data about our career and technical programs,” said Jackson. “What was unique is that—and this isn’t unique to Valencia—there are several different places where people will say, well we really can’t track that. We can track whether a student graduates in three to five years, but we can’t really track whether a student decides to do a career and technical certificate program or just wants to take a class in our technical program because they need a job. The toolkit from this project helps define who enrolled in fall claiming they want a career and technical program credential and what percentage of those students graduate.”
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“Missing in Action”
The SDP ECMCF Fellows examined five years of student enrollment and outcomes, from 2010-11 through 2015-16. During that time, 20,874 first-time Valencia students enrolled. The analysis looked at a variety of student characteristics, such as race, gender, age, and income indicators, as well as students’ intended programs, which they identify when enrolling, and whether they completed a program or transferred to another institution. The data excluded students who enrolled as “transient” or “personal interest” students and looked at whether students earned any credential or degree within five years, not necessarily the program they initially intended to complete.
Overall, they found that 39 percent graduated with any credential within five years, with no difference by age or gender. The fellows also decided to look at outcomes based on how well students did in their first term of Valencia, focusing on students who earned at least a 2.0 grade-point average. That yielded a surprising finding: 29 percent of students who came to Valencia and did well enough to earn a 2.0 or higher did not complete a credential or transfer anywhere else.
These students were “missing in action,” said Giannoulis. “We don’t know where they are. They don’t transfer, and they don’t graduate.”
When community-college students withdraw or transfer elsewhere, institutions may assume that students needed more support, found programs to be too difficult, or simply revised their educational plans. But those assumptions seemed a poor fit for these students, who entered the college with a stated goal and, at least initially, were successful.
“They were here. They didn’t go anywhere else. These are our students,” said Jackson. “These are college-level students passing college-level classes in their first term.”
Putting CTE Data to Work
The fellows point to two conclusions from their work: first, that Valencia can increase enrollment by retaining these students, and second, that program structures can support retention. The college offers both long- and short-term technical certificate programs, some that can be earned after as few as nine credits. Shifting programs and practices so fewer students exit before earning one of these credentials is key.
“We have these offerings. The issue is if a student is mandated into other courses, because they are a new student, or are finding that they can’t take a Monday night class, they might not get it before they leave us,” said Jackson. “So the key really is program structure, course offerings, flexibility. Because we already do have the paths.”
After sharing these findings with senior leadership in their respective departments, they also met with deans and program chairs across the college. Administrators across Valencia have access to a suite of new data tools, including student retention rates by career pathway, program, and program type; a matrix looking at course sequence flexibility and cohort requirements; and a detailed Tableau workbook that tracks student outcomes by characteristic and program.
“The fact is that two out of five students enrolling in our college seeking CTE credentials do not get to see their efforts come to fruition and reap no rewards from the time spent in college,” said Giannoulis. “We have an excellent opportunity to review our programs and ensure that they empower our students to earn incremental credentials that improve their job placement chances and motivation to continue their studies.”
Implications for CTE Institutions
Valencia College is not alone—institutions across the U.S. are focusing on raising both graduation and credential completion rates. As other CTE institutions consider similar goals, they can learn from the Valencia SDP ECMCF Fellows’ work thus far, including:
- Identify clear measures and metrics for goals, aligned with strategic priorities.
- Don’t shy away from digging deeper into data to understand the “why.” For example, do trends in student behavior point to program structures that influence individuals’ decisions to cut short their studies or complete a credential or degree?
- Engage collaborators outside typical CTE partners to identify opportunities to build pathways within and across degree programs, so more students can earn technical credits along the way.
- Consider describing results as “analysis driven” rather than “data driven,” which assumes that data is the source of truth rather than clues to the truth. Analysis-driven insights signal a process to reduce uncertainty by learning from data.
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SDP Impact in Focus:
Who: SDP Fellows Dr. Christos Giannoulis, Senior Institutional Research Analyst, and Nichole Jackson, Director of Learning Assessment
Where: Valencia College in Orlando, Florida
What: Analyzed outcomes for all first-time students who enrolled and were seeking a degree or certificate, to establish a clear set of completion data and metrics based on student characteristics, chosen pathways, and program attributes.
Why: Valencia College, an innovative, award-winning community college in central Florida, has articulated a strategic impact plan that calls for raising graduation and credential completion rates over the next five years, with at least 50 percent of credentials earned by Hispanic students and 25 percent by Black students. A new dedicated measure of Career and Technical Education progression and completion can inform efforts to equitably support more Valencia students to persist and earn high-quality credentials.
“We are creating a data strategy regarding CTE programs to help us achieve our goals for student success” - Christos Giannoulis
SDP thanks the ECMC Foundation for its support launching SDP’s first postsecondary CTE fellowship program.
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Since the writing of this post, Christos and Nichole were recognized for their work at Valencia College by the ECMC Foundation at the CTE Leadership Collaborative Convening. In their submission, they pitched layering degree programs with professional certificates intermittently throughout the course sequence with a goal of boosting the earnings potential and industry flexibility for students along the way to their degree. As part of this recognition, they received a $7,500 award due to their project’s connection to a real-time postsecondary CTE challenge, potential to impact underrepresented communities, and innovative approach to advancing a solution.