College Costs Continue to Rise, Graduation Rates Lag As Student Demographics Shift, SREB Fact Book Shows

"SREB states face a major challenge in helping more students finish college degrees," SREB President Dave Spence said. "Only slightly more than half of freshmen in four-year colleges finish a bachelor’s degree within six years, and this needs to change. College is less affordable for most families, and we must help more students complete degrees if our states are to continue to prosper and grow."

Released today at the SREB Annual Meeting here outside Washington, D.C., the 2009 Fact Book continues to be one of the nation’s leading sources of comparative higher education data, now in its 52nd year. Also, SREB released state-by-state Featured Facts reports that summarize key higher education data for each of the region’s 16 member states. All of the reports are online at www.sreb.org.

About 52 percent of first-time, full-time freshmen in public four-year colleges and universities finish bachelor’s degrees within six years in SREB states, the Fact Book shows. Although the region lagged behind the 55 percent national graduation rate in 2007, rates ranged from 71 percent in Delaware to 37 percent in Louisiana. Most SREB states are seeing their rates rise. (See pages 106-107 in the Fact Book and page 14 in your state’s Featured Facts report.)

While states work to improve college graduation rates, rising student costs are not making it easy. The median annual tuition and required fees for public four-year institutions in SREB states was about $5,000 in 2007-2008 — up 74 percent from a decade earlier compared with a 48 percent increase nationally, after adjusting for inflation. Four-year college tuition and fees in the region ranged from $3,500 in Florida to $7,700 in South Carolina. The median tuition and fees for two-year colleges in SREB states was about $2,100 in the same year, up 45 percent from a decade earlier with inflation. (See page 9 in the Fact Book and pages 22-23 in your state’s Featured Facts report.)

STATES WORKING TO GRADUATE MORE COLLEGE STUDENTS

At four-year colleges, graduation rates generally were lower for the fastest-growing groups of students in SREB states: 40 percent for black students and 44 percent for Hispanic students, compared with 56 percent for white students, the Fact Book shows. SREB states will need more students from these groups to earn degrees to continue the region’s educational progress. South Carolina, Florida, Virginia and North Carolina had the highest graduation rates for black students in the SREB region, in that order. Maryland, Delaware and Virginia had the highest for white and Hispanic students. (See page 105 in the Fact Book and page 20 in your state’s Featured Facts report.)

At two-year colleges, the percentage of students completing degrees or career certificates was lower than for four-year institutions — in part because fewer students attend full time or enroll not intending to complete degrees. Still, rates need to be higher. Rates were 20 percent nationally and 16 percent in SREB states for students who began their studies in 2004 and finished by 2007. Florida continued as a national leader, with a 30 percent graduation rate in two-year colleges. (See page 16 in your state’s Featured Facts report.)

Bachelor’s degrees earned rose by 31 percent in SREB states from 1997 to 2007, and both associate’s and master’s degrees by 39 percent. College degrees clearly pay off. U.S. adults with a bachelor’s degree earned 77 percent more annually than those with only a high school diploma or GED: $59,600 compared with $33,600 in 2008. (See page 12 in your state’s Featured Facts report.)

ENROLLMENT GROWING, DEMOGRAPHICS CHANGING

By 2022 — when this fall’s kindergarten students finish high school — non-white public high school graduates are projected to be the majority in 10 of the 16 SREB states. Hispanic students are projected to account for 31 percent of the region’s public high school graduates — up from 14 percent in 2005. White graduates, who were 60 percent in 2005, will fall to 43 percent by 2022. (See page 37 in the Fact Book and page 4 in your state’s Featured Facts report.)

College enrollment for all institutions grew at a faster pace in SREB states (30 percent) than in the nation (27 percent) from 1997 to 2007. Kentucky saw the region’s largest rate of increase, 44 percent, followed by Georgia with 40 percent, >b>Florida at 39 percent and Arkansas at 36 percent. The SREB region had 61 percent of recent high school graduates enroll in college, matching the national rate; Mississippi had the region’s highest rate at 76 percent. (See page 58 in the Fact Book and page 10 in your state’s Featured Facts report.)

Two-year colleges in SREB states saw enrollment grow at a faster pace than in the nation — 27 percent compared with 21 percent. Two-year college enrollment was 43 percent of undergraduate enrollment in the region and nation, and was a slight majority of undergraduate enrollment in 2007 in two SREB states — Mississippi and Texas.

Women accounted for 63 percent of college enrollment growth in SREB states from 1997 to 2007. In SREB states, women made up 58 percent of undergraduates, 60 percent of graduate students and 49 percent of students in first-professional programs such as law and medicine in SREB states. (See pages 68-69 and 98 in the Fact Book and page 10 in your state’s Featured Facts report.)

For more information on higher education topics in the Fact Book, contact SREB Communications.

The Southern Regional Education Board, or SREB, based in Atlanta, was created in 1948 by Southern governors and legislatures to help leaders in education and government work cooperatively to advance education and improve the social and economic life of the region. SREB has 16 member states: Alabama, Arkansas, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Kentucky, Louisiana, Maryland, Mississippi, North Carolina, Oklahoma, South Carolina, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia and West Virginia. More information is available online at www.sreb.org.