Learner Insights Case Study: Princeton University Uses StudentTracker to Help Students Visualize Postgraduate Possibilities
Transfer enrollment is making a comeback, surpassing 2020 figures. The National Student Clearinghouse Research Center’s fall 2024 Transfer Enrollment and Pathways report reveals that transfer enrollment, which comprises 13% of non-freshmen undergraduates, grew for the third straight year.
The ability to transfer between institutions provides students with greater flexibility in their postsecondary educational pathways. The Transfer Enrollment and Pathways report, which replaces the previous Transfer and Progress report series, finds that college transfer enrollment is now 7.9% greater than in the fall of 2020.
"The growth in transfers this fall is a further indication that students are adjusting postsecondary goals in response to changing education and labor market conditions," said Doug Shapiro, Executive Director of the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center. “That’s good news, especially for those who are able to return from stopouts by finding colleges that better meet their needs.”
Nearly 500,000 students transferred from a two-year to a four-year institution this past fall, a number that is now comparable to fall 2020 (-2,300, -0.5%). Although this remains the most common pathway for transfer students, the share of all transfer students that move from a two-year to a four-year institution declined 3.5 percentage points from fall 2020 to fall 2024.
Additional report highlights include:
Community College Transfer Enrollment: This past fall, 390,000 students transferred into a community college, an increase of 13.5% from the fall of 2020. However, total community college enrollment still has not recovered from pandemic declines (-52,300, -1.5% from fall 2020).
Continuing Transfer Students: The fall of 2024 saw the second straight year of enrollment growth for continuing transfer students — those who were enrolled at a different institution in the spring or summer term immediately prior.
View the complete Transfer Enrollment and Pathways report.
"The growth in transfers this fall is a further indication that students are adjusting postsecondary goals in response to changing education and labor market conditions. That’s good news, especially for those who are able to return from stopouts by finding colleges that better meet their needs."
Doug Shapiro
Executive Director, National Student Clearinghouse Research Center
Additional Resources:
Learner Insights Case Study: Princeton University Uses StudentTracker to Help Students Visualize Postgraduate Possibilities
Princeton’s Institutional Research Team is Compiling Robust Institutional Outcome Data
As a college student, it can be challenging to envision life after graduation. Often, there are questions like: which job should I apply for, or which industry should I explore? To help its students understand the benefits of their degrees, Princeton University’s Office of Institutional Research (IR) is developing new tools that support student inquiry and investigation.
Led by Jed Marsh, Vice Provost of Institutional Research, the IR team pools alumni data, including information obtained from StudentTracker for Colleges and Universities, on career possibilities for students working toward a Princeton degree.
How Does Princeton’s IR Team Compile and Analyze the Data?
“Like most places, we relied on the first destination surveys [which capture information on how new college graduates fare in their careers within six months of graduation],” said Marsh “Along the way, we realized that the StudentTracker data could help us to flesh out that information.”
In 2018, the IR team started using StudentTracker, adding it to their main data sources. They now use:
- StudentTracker for subsequent degree data.
- Outcome surveys for measures like values, community service efforts, and personal growth, and to ascertain skills and abilities that are essential in the contemporary workplace.
- An additional vendor for career placement data.
These sources complement one another to create a robust institutional outcome data set. Marsh shared in a recent webinar, for example, that when one batch of their outcome surveys yielded a lower response rate, his team used StudentTracker data to help complete the picture.
“The great thing about having the Clearinghouse data is that we can validate our outcome survey data,” explained Marsh. “By using StudentTracker, we can get a more complete picture [of our graduates]. Overall, it helps Princeton determine how well we prepared our students.”
Putting the Data to Work Across the Campus
Once the IR team started building the dataset, it became clear that people beyond just administrators would find it helpful.
The team mirrored the data into Princeton’s “information warehouse,” an internal hub that is connected to student record data. Departments like the Center for Career Development and Academic Advising can pull the data to assist in student interactions. For instance, a career advisor can share that an anonymous Princeton student who earned a biology degree is now in medical school.
The dataset benefits the school’s larger efforts as well, such as the school’s Middle States Commission on Higher Education reaccreditation study. StudentTracker data, specifically, supported their case, exemplifying how IR is assessing the outcomes of their students.
What’s Next?
Marsh and his team recognize the present benefits of this dataset, but they also see room for growth and expanding its potential.
They want to standardize their own processes and code so that they can better work with and distribute the information. With a tighter, cleaner handle on it, they feel that they can expand their reach to both prospective and current students, thus helping even more students visualize the post-Princeton possibilities.
Photo: Princeton University, Office of Communications
“The great thing about having the Clearinghouse data is that we can validate our outcome survey data. By using StudentTracker, we can get a more complete picture [of our graduates]. Overall, it helps Princeton determine how well we prepared our students.”
Jed Marsh
Vice Provost of Institutional Research, Princeton University