Persistence and Attainment of 2003-04 Beginning Postsecondary Students: After Three Years

摘要

This report provides a brief description of the degree attainment and persistence of a nationally representative sample of students who began postsecondary education for the first time in the 2003-04 academic year. The report provides a first look at the experience of these students over three academic years, from July 2003 to June 2006, and provides information about rates of program completion, transfer, and attrition for students who first enrolled at various types of postsecondary institutions using data from the 2004/06 Beginning Postsecondary Students Longitudinal Study (BPS:04/06). The BPS survey is the longitudinal component of the 200304 National Postsecondary Student Aid Study (NPSAS:04), a nationally representative sample that includes students enrolled in all types of postsecondary institutions. The BPS:04/06 cohort consists of students in the NPSAS:04 sample that were identified as having enrolled in postsecondary education for the first time during the 200304 academic year. These beginning students were initially interviewed in 2004, at the end of their first year in postsecondary education, and then interviewed again in 2006, three years after they had started. The information in this report may be compared to a previous NCES report that examined the degree attainment and persistence after three years of students who began postsecondary education for the first time in 1995-96. The estimates presented in the report were produced using the NCES Data Analysis System (DAS), a web-based software application that enables users to specify and generate tables for most of the postsecondary surveys conducted by NCES. The DAS produces the design-adjusted standard errors necessary for testing the statistical significance of differences in the estimates.