Adapting the graduation efficiency index to provide a consistent basis for assessment of student progress towards graduation

ABSTRACT

Graduation efficiency is of top concern for institutions of higher education throughout the world. Increasingly, accountability metrics have come under scrutiny as policymakers seek to ensure public resources are efficiently used. Traditionally, higher education policymakers in the USA and Europe have used graduation rate as an accountability measure to assess a university’s efficient use of resources. This time-to-degree method, however, does not take into account the shift in student demographics from a traditional full-time student to the diverse group of students pursuing higher education through varied paths, including balancing work with reduced course loads, studying abroad, completing internships, among others. These changes suggest additional accountability measures are needed to accurately capture student progress as it relates to resource utilisation. This research adapts the Graduation Efficiency Index proposed by Gillmore and Hoffman (1997) to a cohort-based model to allow for evaluating retention policies implemented by cohorts to improve student progress.

KEYWORDS:

• Graduation efficiency
• retention
• higher education
• policy
• race
• gender
• age

Acknowledgments

The authors wish to express their appreciation to the support provided by the initial research team at the University of North Carolina, General Administration, Dr James Sadler, Dr Xiaoyun Yang, and Mr Keith Brown.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes on contributors

Brenda L. Killingsworth has a PhD in management information systems from the University of South Carolina. Her current research interests include student retention and success, team dynamics, and healthcare information systems.

Mahmud Mansaray holds a PhD in public administration/public policy. He is a research analyst and an adjunct professor of statistics at the North Carolina Central University. Mahmud’s research interests include policy issues in higher education, in addition to macroeconomic issues in public and business organisations. His recent publication was on the utility maximisation of effective teaching of economics.

Len Rhodes is the Director of Technology, Information, and Operations at the College of Business East Carolina University and a Teaching Instructor in the Department of Finance. A graduate of East Carolina University with a Bachelor of Science in Business Administration and an MBA, he spent 14 years in small business and entrepreneurship in eastern North Carolina. In 2000, Len joined the College of Business at ECU and has served in several roles, including Assistant Dean for Graduate Programs for the College of Business and then as Director of Institutional Research. He has served on the Board of Directors of the North Carolina Council on Economic Education and on the Personal Financial Education Advisory Board of the Inceptia Institute.

ORCID

Brenda L. Killingsworth http://orcid.org/0000-0003-2795-1474

Mahmud A. Mansaray http://orcid.org/0000-0001-5462-1222

Len Rhodes http://orcid.org/0000-0001-9352-3406

Notes

1 The International Standard Classification of Education Fields of Education and Training 2013 (ISCED-F) developed by the United Nations Educational, Scientific, and Cultural Organization (UNESCO) serves a similar, but the more wide-reaching purpose in that it is used to facilitate comparisons of educational programs across countries (UNESCO 2014).