METROPOLITAN STATE UNIVERSITY OF DENVER

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1 METROPOLITAN STATE UNIVERSITY OF DENVER MSU Denver Alumni Post-Graduate Educational Achievements: A 10-Year Review Samantha Kalinowski, MCJ Office of Institutional Research Executive Summary As MSU Denver strives towards the goal of preeminence, it is increasingly important that the university understand its impact on its alumni and the community. Examining the postgraduate educational achievements of alumni after obtaining a degree from MSU Denver is significant given the university s recent expansion into providing opportunities for master s degrees in social work, accounting, and teacher education. This report examines ten years of MSU Denver Graduates and their post-graduate achievements. MSU Denver graduates from Summer 1997 through Spring 2007 were matched with data from National Student Clearinghouse. This database tracks student enrollment and graduation. With this information the researcher was able to determine rates of graduate degrees earned by MSU Denver graduates. Nearly 15% of all MSU Denver graduates studied earned a graduate degree. This percentage varied greatly with major and college. 20.4% of MSU Denver graduates with a major from the School of Letters, Arts, and Sciences (including social work majors) earned a graduate degree. 7.0% of MSU Denver graduates with a major from the School of Business earned a graduate degree. 14.3% of MSU Denver graduates with a major from the School of Professional Studies (including teacher licensure students) earned a graduate degree. 25.3% of MSU Denver graduates who participated in the teacher licensure program earned a graduate degree. 47.1% of MSU Denver graduates with an undergraduate major in social work earned a graduate degree. The time elapsed between earning an undergraduate degree from MSU Denver and earning a graduate degree was 5.0 years. This mean time to a graduate degree did not vary significantly among majors or colleges. The most common graduate degree earned, regardless of major, was a master s degree. The top areas of study pursued in graduate school were: Education Business Social Work Office of Institutional Research Page 1 Revised:

2 Law Psychology The remainder of this report will detail research methodology. It will also provide a more in-depth profile of post-graduation achievements by course of study. Finally, the report will discuss potential implications for MSU Denver s future. Sample & Methodology All MSU Denver graduates from Summer 1997 through Spring 2007 were pulled from OIR files. These graduates were separated into Academic Year cohorts (Summer-Spring). The cohort files were sent to the National Student Clearinghouse s (NSCL) Student Tracker Service for review with instructions to search for enrollment and graduation records beginning with August 1 st for the given year (ex. For the cohort, the search date was August 1 st, 2000) and ending at the date the data was requested on June 5 th, The returned files included a record of every enrollment and graduation after the specified date. Since the project was only interested in graduate degrees earned including graduate certificates, master s degrees, Ph.D. s, Educational Specialist degrees, and professional degrees (i.e. JD, MD, DVM, etc), the files were cleaned by: 1. Selecting only records marked with Y in the Graduated field. 2. Removing Bachelor s and Associate s Degrees Two other issues arose when cleaning the files. One, there were duplicate records. This was determined by the same student having the same degree and major on two different records as well as a graduation date (often the exact same graduation date) within 6 months of each other. Inquiries to NSCL revealed that duplication of records does occasionally happen. Duplicate records were removed; if there was a difference in the graduation date, the record with the earliest graduation date was kept. The other issue that complicated the cleaning process was missing data in the Degree and Major field. National Student Clearinghouse indicated that the missing data is typically due to the fact that not all schools participate in the student tracker service, so not all data is available for those colleges. This prevented staff, initially, from knowing whether the record was relevant (i.e. a graduate degree) to the project or not. Approximately 220 records were incomplete in this manner. Some were eliminated by the college the degree was earned from if the degree was earned from a two-year, or community college, it was assumed it was not a graduate degree. Most of the remaining records were filled in through: 1. A social media and general Internet search alumni with missing records were often found on LinkedIn and sometimes through employer websites 2. An inquiry to the Colorado Commission of Higher Education for those students who obtained a degree from a Colorado university Office of Institutional Research Page 2 Revised:

3 After these efforts, 91 records with missing information remained; they were eliminated from the study. These records affected 89 unique students. However, 10 students had another graduate degree, with completed information, that qualified them for the study. In these cases, the degree with missing information still isn t counted, and the degree with completed information is counted as their 1 st post-graduate achievement. This leaves 79 unique students affected by the missing data. Table 1. MSU Majors Most Affected by Missing NSCL Data Majors Affected N (= 80*) Percent Biology % English 7 8.8% Psychology 7 8.8% Behavioral Science 5 6.3% Computer Information Systems 4 5.0% Criminal Justice & Criminology 4 5.0% Individualized Degree Program 4 5.0% Nursing 4 5.0% Speech Communication 4 5.0% *One student earned both a first and second bachelor from MSU Denver during the sample period; each degree is counted separately. In addition, 11 Teacher Licensure students were affected by the missing data. Office of Institutional Research Page 3 Revised:

4 MSU Denver All Graduates Table 2. MSU Denver Graduates 10-Year Sample 1997/ / / / / / / / / /2007 Total 2,060 1,941 2,109 2,005 2,095 2,107 2,136 2,241 2,405 2,445 21,544 MSU Denver saw a fairly consistent rise in the number of graduates over the 10-years. Table 3. MSU Denver Graduates Post Graduate Achievement 10-Year Sample 1997/ / / / / / / / / /2007 Total ,177 Chart 1. Percentage of Cohort Completing Post- Graduate Education: MSU Denver, All Graduates 100.0% 90.0% 80.0% 70.0% 60.0% 50.0% 40.0% 30.0% 20.0% 10.0% 0.0% 17.4% 16.8% 14.0% 17.2% 17.7% 15.5% 15.1% 13.3% 11.1% 11.0% Office of Institutional Research Page 4 Revised:

5 Post-graduate achievement for MSU Denver graduates is 14.7% for all 10 years (Chart 1). The lowest postgraduate completion rates (11.0%) were in the 2006/2007 cohort. Nearly 18% of MSU graduates from the 2001/2002 cohort completed some kind of post-graduate education by the beginning of June 2012, which was the highest rate of completion for any of the 10 cohorts. Although the rate of post-graduate completion drops in later years, this may not necessarily indicate that fewer students are pursuing graduate school. Analysis indicates (Table 4) that average time to first graduate school achievement is five years with some students taking 10 or more years to obtain their first graduate degree. Since the data was requested at exactly the five year mark for the last cohort, the lower percentage of graduate school completion may simply indicate that not enough time has passed for students to complete their graduate education. Table 4. MSU Denver Graduates Time to First Post-Graduate Achievement Mean 5.0 Years Median 4.5 Years Minimum* -.77 Years Maximum 14.7 Years *The minimum time to post-graduate achievement is a negative number because three students were working on both a second bachelor s degree at MSU Denver and a graduate degree at another institution simultaneously. Two of these students were awarded their graduate degree and their second bachelor s degree within only a few days of each other. When these students are removed, the minimum time to post-graduate achievement is.82 years. Table 5. Degrees Earned by All MSU grads Degree N Graduate Certificate 69 Master s 3,024 Educational Specialist 18 Ph.D. 70 Professional Degree 219 TOTAL 3,400 Number of degrees earned totals more than the number of post-graduate students due to students earning more than one graduate degree Collectively, MSU Denver graduates from the 10-year sample period earned 70 Ph.Ds in a variety of major areas, including: Education: Leadership & Administration (11), Medicine (7), Biology (6), Clinical/Counseling Psychology (6), Mathematics (6), Earth & Atmospheric Sciences (5), Nursing (5), Speech, Language, & Hearing Sciences (4), and Psychology: Unspecified/Other (3). MSU Denver graduates also earned 219 Professional degrees, including: 143 Juris Doctorates; 28 Doctor of Pharmacy, 16 Doctor of Veterinary Medicine, 12 Doctor of Medicine, 11 Doctor of Dentistry/Dental Surgery, 6 Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine, 2 Doctor of Chiropractic, and 1 Doctor of Optometry degrees. Overall the most common major areas were: Education: General/Not Specified (337), Business (254), Social Work (252), Early/Elementary/Secondary Education (215), Education: Leadership & Administration (184), Law Office of Institutional Research Page 5 Revised:

6 (159), Clinical/Counseling Psychology (158), School/Educational Psychology (128), Special Education (106), and Management (84). OIR also analyzed each major individually to find the post-graduate completion rate for its graduates. These individual major profiles are available upon request. Some things to note about the data: If a student graduated with a double major, they are counted in the analysis for both majors Due to their interdisciplinary nature, IDP majors will be considered separately from the three academic schools Students who also obtain teacher licensure will also be counted both for the primary major and the Teacher Licensure Program MSU Denver School of Letters, Arts, & Sciences Overall, 20.4% of LAS graduates have completed a post-graduate program during the sample period. Graduate school completion ranges from a low of 14.8% for 2006/2007 graduates to a high of 25.9% for 2000/2001 graduates. Chart 2. Percentage of Cohort Completing Post- Graduate Education: LAS Total 100.0% 90.0% 80.0% 70.0% 60.0% 50.0% 40.0% 30.0% 20.0% 10.0% 0.0% 22.8% 23.4% 19.5% 25.9% 24.3% 19.7% 21.0% 18.9% 15.8% 14.8% The average time to first post-graduate achievement for LAS majors is 4.9 years. Office of Institutional Research Page 6 Revised:

7 Table 6. MSU Denver, School of Letters, Arts, & Sciences Majors: 10-Year Post-Graduate Achievement MSU Denver Graduates w/ Post-Graduate Education Time to 1st Post- Grad Achievement Majors N N % Mean Years African American Studies % 6.5 Anthropology % 5.1 Art % 5.2 Behavioral Science 1, % 5.1 Biology % 5.2 Chemistry % 4.8 Chicano Studies % 6.3 Computer Science % 4.7 English % 5.6 Environmental Science % 5.1 Human Development % 2.9 History % 5.1 Journalism % 5.5 Modern Languages % 5.5 Mathematics % 4.8 Meteorology % 4.8 Music Education % 7.0 Music & Music Performance % 5.0 Philosophy % 4.4 Physics % 4.1 Political Science % 4.6 Psychology 1, % 5.0 Sociology % 5.2 Speech Communications % 4.8 Social Work % 2.8 Theatre % 2.7 Urban Studies % 4.6 LAS Graduates Total* 10,958 2, % 4.9 *LAS total does not equal the sum of all majors because of those students double majoring in two LAS areas. Double majors are counted for both majors, but only once in the total graduates. LAS students earned 159 professional degrees including: 88 Juris Doctorates, 25 Doctor of Pharmacy degrees, 15 Doctorates of Veterinary Medicine, 12 Doctorates of Medicine, 11 Doctorates of Dentistry/Dental Medicine/Dental Surgery, 6 Doctorates of Osteopathic Medicine, 1 Doctor of Chiropractic degree and 1 Doctor of Optometry degree. Office of Institutional Research Page 7 Revised:

8 Table 7. Degrees Earned by LAS grads Degree N Graduate Certificate 50 Master s 2,104 Educational Specialist 16 Ph.D. 53 Professional Degree 159 TOTAL 2,382 Number of degrees earned totals more than the number of post-graduate students due to students earning more than one graduate degree LAS students also earned 53 Ph.D.s. These included Ph.D.s in: Biology (6), Clinical/Counseling Psychology (6), Education: Leadership & Administration (6), Mathematics (6), Earth & Atmospheric Sciences (4), Speech, Language, & Hearing Sciences (4), Nursing (3), Psychology: Other/Unspecified (3), English (2), Medicine (2), Chemistry (1), Education: General/Not Specified (1), Education: Other Concentration (1), Healthcare: Other (1), History (1), Modern Languages (1), Music (1), Philosophy (1), Physics (1), Public Policy (1), Speech Communications (1). Overall, common graduate majors for LAS students were: Education: General/Not Specified (305), Social Work (225), Early/Elementary/Secondary Education (188), Education: Leadership & Administration (149), Clinical/Counseling Psychology (119), Educational/School Counseling (109), Law (96), Special Education (86), Business (82), and Bilingual Education (69). MSU Denver School of Business Overall, 7.0% of BUS majors went on to complete a graduate program. Graduate school completion rates ranged from a low of 3.5% in the 2006/2007 cohort to a high of 10.2% in the 1997/1998 cohort. Chart 3. Percentage of Cohort Completing Post- Graduate Education: School of Business 100.0% 80.0% 60.0% 40.0% 20.0% 10.2% 8.9% 7.5% 5.9% 7.2% 9.2% 7.6% 5.7% 4.5% 3.5% 0.0% Office of Institutional Research Page 8 Revised:

9 On average, BUS majors earned their first graduate degree 5.2 years after leaving MSU Denver. Table 8. MSU Denver, School of Business: 10-Year Post-Graduate Achievement MSU Denver Graduates w/ Post-Graduate Education Time to 1st Post- Grad Achievement Majors N N % Mean Years Accounting % 5.1 Computer Information Systems 1, % 5.4 Economics % 5.5 Finance % 4.9 Management 1, % 5.5 Marketing % 5.3 BUS Graduates TOTAL* 4, % 5.2 *BUS total does not equal the sum of all majors because of those students double majoring in two BUS areas. Double majors are counted for both majors, but only once in the total graduates. All BUS majors who completed a post graduate program earned at least a master s degree. Ten graduates earned Juris Doctorates and three earned Doctor of Pharmacy degrees. BUS majors also earned four Ph.Ds in: Accounting (1), Business (1), Earth & Atmospheric Sciences (1), and Education: Leadership & Administration (1). Table 9. Degrees Earned by BUS majors Degree N Graduate Certificate 9 Master s 336 Educational Specialist 0 Ph.D. 4 Professional Degree 13 TOTAL 362 Number of degrees earned totals more than the number of post-graduate students due to students earning more than one graduate degree The most common majors were: Business (119), Accounting (38), Management (35), Computer Information systems (34), and Finance (19). MSU Denver School of Professional Studies Overall, 10.2% of SPS majors went on to complete a graduate program. Graduate school completion rates ranged from a low of 7.1% in the 2005/2006 cohort to a high of 13.3% in the 1997/1998 cohort. Office of Institutional Research Page 9 Revised:

10 Chart 4. Percentage of Cohort Completing Post- Graduate Education: School of Professional Studies 100.0% 80.0% 60.0% 40.0% 20.0% 0.0% 13.5% 12.7% 11.9% 17.1% 20.8% 17.1% 16.4% 14.0% 11.1% 10.7% Table 10. MSU Denver, Professional Studies Majors: 10-Year Post-Graduate Achievement MSU Denver Graduates w/ Post-Graduate Education Time to 1st Post- Grad Achievement Majors N N % Mean Years Aviation Management % 7.2 Aviation Technology % 5.5 Civil Engineering Technology % 5.3 Criminal Justice & Criminology 1, % 5.1 Electrical Engineering Technology % 6.5 Health Care Management % 4.6 Hospitality, Management & Tourism % 5.9 Human Performance & Sports % 5.3 Human Services % 4.4 Industrial Design % 6.8 Leisure Studies % 4.1 Land Use % 5.1 Mechanical Engineering % 5.8 Nursing % 5.1 Pilot Licensure % ---- Special Education % 3.4 Surveying & Mapping % 8.5 Teacher Licensure Program 2, % 4.8 Technical Communications % 5.2 PS Graduates TOTAL* 7,542 1, % 5.0 *SPS total does not equal the sum of all majors because of those students double majoring in two SPS areas. Double majors are counted for both majors, but only once in the total graduates. Office of Institutional Research Page 10 Revised:

11 On average, SPS majors earned their first graduate degree 5.0 years after leaving MSU Denver. Most SPS majors who completed a post graduate program earned at least a master s degree. Forty-nine graduates earned Juris Doctorates, one earned a Doctor of Veterinary Medicine degree, one earned a Doctor of Pharmacy degree, and one earned a Doctor of Chiropractic degree. Ten students earned Ph.Ds in: Medicine (4), Education: Leadership & Administration (3), Nursing (2) and Mathematics (1). Table 11. Degrees Earned by SPS majors Degree N Graduate Certificate 16 Master s 1,051 Educational Specialist 6 Ph.D. 10 Professional Degree 54 TOTAL 1,137 Number of degrees earned totals more than the number of post-graduate students due to students earning more than one graduate degree The most common major areas were: Education: General/Not Specified (185), Education: Leadership & Administration (89), Education: Early/Elementary/Secondary (85), Business (58), Law (56), Education: Special Education (53), Clinical/Counseling Psychology (44), Criminal Justice & Criminology (43), Education: Technology (40), and Education: K-12(39). MSU Denver IDP Overall, 17.7% of IDP majors went on to complete a graduate program. Graduate school completion rates ranged from a low of 8.0% in the 2006/2007 cohort to a high of 25.5% in the 2001/2002 cohort. Office of Institutional Research Page 11 Revised:

12 Chart 5. Percentage of Cohort Completing Post- Graduate Education: Other Programs 100.0% 90.0% 80.0% 70.0% 60.0% 50.0% 40.0% 30.0% 20.0% 10.0% 0.0% 33.3% 36.0% 35.9% 25.0% 27.8% 25.5% 28.3% 29.2% 17.8% 22.4% 17.6% 19.6% 22.0% 15.1% 24.7% 17.9% 20.1% 9.5% 12.5% 8.0% IDP Teacher Licensure For students graduating with a teacher licensure designation, 25.3% completed a graduate program. Graduate school completion rates for licensure students ranged from a low of 9.5% in the 2004/2005 cohort to a high of 36.0% in the 2000/2001 cohort. Table 12. MSU Denver, IDP Majors: 10-Year Post-Graduate Achievement MSU Denver Graduates w/ Post-Graduate Education Time to 1st Post- Grad Achievement N N % Mean Years Individualized Degree Program % 5.2 On average, IDP majors completed their first graduate degree 5.2 years after leaving MSU Denver; licensure student completed their first graduate degree in 4.8 years. Most IDP and teacher licensure students who completed a post graduate program earned at least a master s degree. Six IDP majors earned Juris Doctorates. Five IDP students earned Ph.D.s in the areas of: Anthropology, Education: Leadership & Administration, History, Medicine, and Music. The most common major areas were: Education: General/Not Specified (7), Law (6), Music (6), Early/Elementary/Secondary Education (5), Clinical/Counseling Psychology (4), Special Education (4), Education: Technology (4), International Studies (4), and Anthropology (4). Office of Institutional Research Page 12 Revised:

13 Table 13. Degrees Earned by IDP Majors Degree N Graduate Certificate 3 Master s 90 Educational Specialist 0 Ph.D. 5 Professional Degree 6 TOTAL 104 Number of degrees earned totals more than the number of post-graduate students due to students earning more than one graduate degree Discussion First and foremost, readers should be cautioned against making comparisons between majors or schools. Some majors, where an advanced degree would be expected for success in that field, are geared towards preparing the student for graduate school. In these majors, graduate school completion would likely be higher than those majors aimed more towards obtaining a career immediately after completion of the bachelor s degree. A few interesting results came from the graduate school analysis: There is strong support for MSU Denver s addition of the master s program in the Social Work Nearly half of Social Work students have been completing some form of graduate education. Social Work is the third most represented major area for graduate degrees obtained by MSU Denver graduates. There is strong support for MSU Denver s addition of the master s program in Teaching More than one-quarter of teacher licensure students at MSU Denver complete graduate education. Additionally, graduates from many majors within LAS, as well as a few from both BUS and other areas of SPS, go on to complete a graduate program in an education field. The top 10 major areas represent 1,877 degrees; 842 (44.9%) of them are in an educational field. MSU Denver grads take a little longer to complete their first graduate degree The average time to first graduate degree is 5.0 years after leaving MSU Denver This could be reflective of the working student population that comprises much of MSU Denver s student body There are areas for possible exploration for other educational programs at MSU Denver More than 65% of all professional degrees earned were Juris Doctorates. Students who pursued this educational track came from many majors and schools. A pre-law program or concentration area may help students interested in this line of study gain more specialized knowledge and may be able to better guide them towards earning a law degree. Office of Institutional Research Page 13 Revised:

14 There is potential for expanding the master s program in Teaching. Several concentration areas were pursued that are not currently offered at MSU Denver, notably, Educational Leadership & Administration. Business Administration was also an interest of MSU Denver graduates from a variety of majors. Potential exists for an MBA program at MSU Denver. Both Counseling/Clinical Psychology and Educational/School Psychology were well represented interests of MSU Denver graduates. School Psychology in particular shows promise as an area of exploration as it seems to fit well with MSU Denver s established Teaching and Social Work programs. Office of Institutional Research Page 14 Revised: