Hartford Promise Students Find Different Success Rates at CT Auto-Admit Colleges

Findings

When assessing outcomes for Hartford Promise students who attend these CAAP institutions, it is important to define what success looks like. In using the data given by Hartford Promise, success is most clearly defined when a student receives a Bachelor’s degree. This is because it shows that a student attended one (or perhaps multiple) institution in which they completed academic milestones in order to study what they are interested in. This benchmark of success was then contextualized in the number of students enrolled at any of the nine CAAP institutions. By dividing the number of Bachelor degree earners at each institution by the total number of Hartford Promise students enrolled at that institution, there was a resulting completion rate that allowed for clearer comparison between the past outcomes of the scholars at CAAP institutions:

(# of BA Earners/# of Hartford Promise Students Enrolled at Any Time)

General finings show that the average completion rate for the nine CAAP institutions was approximately 32% overall. This was calculated by dividing the sum of Hartford Promise bachelor degree earners at all of the institutions by the sum of Hartford Promise students enrolled at any time at these institutions. Using the same method of calculation, the completion rates for public and private CAAP institutions could be compared. The average completion rate for public CAAP institutions was approximately 41% and 19% for private institutions.

While creating pivot tables to find these numbers, it started to becomebecame clear that not all of the nine CAAP institutions would be usable to assess outcomes for Hartford Promise students. One institution, Mitchell College, did not have data for any past Hartford Promise Students attending. As such, it was not possible to calculate the completion rate at that college. In addition, other institutions like Western Connecticut State University, University of Bridgeport, and University of New Haven each had only one instance of a Hartford Promise student enrolling at any time throughout their higher education path. In addition, none of these three students went on to achieve a Bachelor’s degree at any of the three institutions. As such, the sample size from these four universities would not be significant enough to consider them for comparison.

However, the other institutions with larger sample sizes could be compared in terms of their success rates:

A bar chart within a table made the most sense when visually displaying the data because it most clearly illustrates the differences in the percentages of Hartford promise students who completed a Bachelor’s degree at these particular CAAP institutions. The chart was placed within a table because it most clearly shows the raw data at these CAAP institutions; this helps to contextualize the percentages. At 63%, Southern Connecticut State University has the highest completion rate amongst these schools. On the lower end, although Goodwin University had the second highest number of enrolled Hartford Promise students (21 students), there were no instances of any student completing a Bachelor’s degree at the school. The data shows that Hartford Promise students do not stay at Goodwin University multiple semesters.

Another important aspect of Hartford Promise students attending CAAP universities is how they compare with the other students at these schools. By using College Scorecard, it is possible to start to make these comparisons. In terms of completion rate based upon enrollment and earning a bachelor’s degree, College Scorecard does not provide the matching to completely mimic the completion rates extrapolated from the Hartford Promise. However, College Scorecard does provide a “graduation rate” of students who enrolled in a university and were able to graduate with a degree (the type of degree was not specified). By comparing the Hartford Promise completion rates to College Scorecard’s graduation rates, there are noticeable gaps between the general student body and Hartford Promise scholars.

The comparison between these rates was done by using a range chart. This type of chart mostly clearly illustrated the gaps between the general body and Hartford Promise students at these schools:

The data from this range chart is sorted by the size of the gaps (from largest to smallest) in completion rate between Hartford Promise students and the general student population. The results illustrate that—aside from the Southern Connecticut State University—Hartford Promise students have typically had lower completion rates than the rest of their peers at these CAAP institutions. As expected, Goodwin University had the largest completion rate gap (43%) between Hartford Promise students and the general student population; Southern Connecticut State University had the smallest completion rate gap (9%). Another notable finding is that there is no pattern of signifagnce of the gaps in completion rates between the three public and two private qualifying schools.