Roughly one out of every four high school graduates in the Big Horn Basin go on to enroll at Northwest College, according to data presented to the college’s board of trustees last week.
There are 11 public high schools within the Basin: Powell High School and the Shoshone Learning Center, Cody High School, Meeteetse Schools, Greybull High School, Lovell High School, Riverside High School in Basin, Rocky Mountain High School in Cowley, Ten Sleep High School, Burlington High School and Worland High School.
Between 2018 and 2020, 515 students graduated from Big Horn Basin high schools, and 139 of them enrolled at Northwest College within a year of graduation. Of those 139 students, 98 had been dual or concurrently enrolled at the college during their high school years, according to data compiled and presented by NWC Institutional Research Manager Lisa Smith.
The three-year average for high school graduates in the Basin who go on to NWC was 27%. In 2018 and 2019, the rate was 29%, but the figure dropped to 23% in 2020, most likely due to the COVID-19 pandemic.
Retention rates also fell during the fall 2020 semester for students who were enrolled at NWC in the fall of 2019. Northwest College’s overall 57% retention rate in the 2020 fall semester — which includes students from outside the Big Horn Basin — was slightly higher than the state average of 56%. However, retention rates for Big Horn Basin graduates in the same period was 52%.
“That was a little lower than I would have expected to see,” Smith said.
Graduation rates for Big Horn Basin students were higher than the overall NWC student population. Of the 2016 and 2017 fall cohort, 51% of Big Horn Basin high school graduates went on to graduate from NWC in four years or less, whereas 46% of all NWC students did.
Among Big Horn Basin students who were dual and concurrently enrolled and enrolled in the fall 2016 semester at NWC, 59% of those individuals went on to graduate from the college in four years or less. The same group of students who enrolled in the fall 2017 graduated from NWC at a rate of 67%.
Smith also presented data on the percentage of students entering NWC who are placed into remedial math courses. For the general student population, 66% were placed in remedial math in 2018, before dropping to 51% in 2020. Among Big Horn Basin graduates, the rate was 58% in 2018 and 50% in 2020. For Basin graduates who were dual and concurrently enrolled, 48% of those students needed additional math instruction in 2018 and 42% in 2020.
Trustee Dusty Spomer expressed concern about the figures among area students.
“When I see 50% of students coming to Northwest College having to take some form of remedial math, it makes me wonder where we miss the boat … This seems like an alarming rate to me,” Spomer said.
Interim President Lisa Watson said the numbers are similar nationwide, and Vice President for Academic Affairs Gerald Giraud discussed some changes over the past years with how the college conducts remedial classes.
Recent research, Giraud said, showed that students who take the developmental courses don’t necessarily have better success rates. The college began referring students who need the developmental coursework to adult education courses, which don’t charge the students for classes that don’t count toward graduation.
Northwest College also created sections of college-level math instruction that are backed up by extra class hours to help support students who need it.
“So we’re providing them some supplemental support,” Giraud said.
Trustee John Housel, who represents the Cody district, asked about efforts to improve the number of Cody High School graduates who enroll at NWC. In the most recent three-year average, 31% of Cody High School graduates went on to enroll at the college, as compared to 42% of Powell High School graduates.
“I’d sure like to see that number for Cody brought back up again,” Housel said.
Watson said NWC is doing more recruitment work in middle schools, and even trying to have a presence in elementary schools. The college is also trying to have more visible advertising efforts in Big Horn Basin high schools, Watson said, “so that throughout their high school experience, they think of us as an option for them.”
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August 24, 2021 at 09:20PM
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