Fortunately, real-time attendance data is standard in most districts. Yet when it comes to understanding what happens to students after high school — trade school or college enrollment, persistence and completion — many schools are left with years-old, incomplete or nonexistent information. Without timely insights, schools cannot meaningfully evaluate or improve practices, interventions or partnerships.

Nationwide, schools are making concerted efforts to improve college and career outcomes, but they are hamstrung by data limitations. School and district leaders often turn to publicly available state report cards which provide a snapshot of postsecondary enrollment information. At best, these report cards include data from the previous year’s graduating class — though, in many cases, the snapshots are even older. This gap is a serious issue. School and district leaders, as well as the public, need timely access to this data to make informed decisions and improve college and career advising practices. 

The National Student Clearinghouse database, containing enrollment and completion data from over 3,500 colleges nationwide, is shared with the vast majority of states and includes updates on the most recent graduating class. States could combine these statistics with, for example, employment data from their department of labor to offer school districts a comprehensive view of student outcomes after high school. However, most states fail to make clearinghouse data accessible in their publicly available report cards and, based on OneGoal’s experiences in seven states — Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan,  Texas and Wisconsin — this information is also not shared directly with districts.

Our district partners in those seven states report that none received the most recent clearinghouse data release from Nov. 27, which includes enrollment information for the class of 2024’s first fall semester. In a separate, 50-state analysis of publicly available state reports and postsecondary enrollment data, we found that just 23  states made available college enrollment data from the high school  class of 2022, while nine offered only older data. For researchers interested in general postsecondary enrollment trends, this might suffice. But it’s not enough for school and district leaders who need timely information to guide their work. 

While some districts with adequate resources buy a StudentTracker subscription directly from the clearinghouse, this option is often unknown or unaffordable. It’s also unnecessary — states already purchase this data on behalf of districts. But if it’s not passed on, school and district leaders can’t improve their advising practices for the next graduating class, as they won’t understand what happened to the graduating class that just walked across their stage.

Still, in the last several years, school districts nationwide have established novel solutions to build bridges from high school to college, supported by data sharing at the state level:

• Wisconsin published class of 2023 enrollment outcomes for the 2023-24 school year in a publicly available that offers interactive visualizations of trends over time and disaggregates data by student subgroups. School leaders can securely access individual student-level data to inform their practices.
  
• Vermont displayed an “” on its state report card to help school and district leaders analyze the difference in postsecondary performance between students who have been historically underserved in schools and their wealthier peers.
  
• Mississippi shares real-time clearinghouse data directly with districts through its state student information system and is training school and district leaders to use it.
  
• Indiana combines two- and four-year enrollment statistics with employment data through its (Graduates Prepared to Succeed) dashboard to paint a holistic picture of what happens to students after high school graduation, including non-degree pathways.

These efforts are a good start. But as every teacher, counselor or leader knows, real-time, disaggregated data is needed to meaningfully inform advising practices and interventions.

• School leaders should advocate for access to their state’s most recent student data. Almost every state has a direct contract with the clearinghouse. If feasible, they can also consider purchasing a .
  
• State education agencies nationwide need to follow the lead of states like Wisconsin and create better systems for sharing data as soon as they receive it. They should also form collaboratives with other state agencies like the department of labor to obtain data on students who enter the workforce directly after graduation. These agencies also need to join a organized by the Council of Chief State Schools Officers, which is working with the Department of Defense to help standardize the process of sharing military enlistment data with school districts.
  
• Partnerships with organizations like and the can complement school district efforts by providing robust data analysis expertise.

Developing a shared understanding of postsecondary enrollment patterns can inform schools’ advising practices, course sequences and partnerships with local organizations, colleges and universities, community colleges and employers. More access to data means a more inclusive approach to postsecondary preparation and better access to pathways aligned with students’ interests and workforce needs.

Disclosure: The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Charles and Lynn Schusterman Family Philanthropies and Heckscher Foundation for Children provide financial support to OneGoal and ����Ӱ��.

Many of the seniors who she had supported through the spring college admission process at Capital High in Madison, Wisconsin — where about three-quarters of students are Black or Hispanic, and 4 in 5 qualify for free or reduced-price lunch — opted to abandon their post-secondary plans for fall. Even students who had won scholarships, she learned, decided not to enroll.

“Survival became the key,” Matt told ����Ӱ��, explaining that, instead of college, many students picked up jobs to help their families make ends meet. “They became … the breadwinning part of the family.”

When the fall of 2021 rolled around, very few of those students were ready to return to their studies. One was working as a security guard, others were in fast food, another disclosed to the Wisconsin counselor that his mental health had taken a downturn during quarantine and that he couldn’t consider moving away from his family for college. 

The pandemic, Matt said, “threw a wrench” into many students’ higher education plans.

Similar trends have played out for countless students across the country, new data reveal: More than a year after a surge of 2020 high school graduates chose to scrap or postpone their college plans, only a tiny fraction have now re-enrolled to pursue higher education.

Just of students who opted to take time off after completing high school in 2020 matriculated a year later in 2021, meaning the vast majority did not take short-term “gap years,” but rather have put college plans on an extended pause — or nixed them altogether. 

Nearly 1 million 2020 grads in the dataset, which comes from the , did not immediately enroll in college the following fall. Because the Clearinghouse tracks roughly half of the nation’s high school seniors, the true population-wide number may be closer to 2 million.

Those are worrisome statistics for experts who say the further that high school graduates delay post-secondary education, the more difficult their transition back to school becomes.

“In normal times, we know that the longer students stay out of school, the harder it is for them to come back and restart,” said Doug Shapiro, executive director of the Clearinghouse’s research center.

The nation’s first high school class to graduate amid the pandemic saw a considerable dip in college-going, with only 39 percent immediately enrolling in higher education compared to 43 and 42 percent of the 2018 and 2019 classes, respectively.

Because of the increased pool of students who did not go straight to college, observers had hoped to see a bump in what they call “gap year enrollment,” or the share of students who matriculate a year later. But the 2 percent return rate is slightly lower than previous years.

“There was a great expectation that this was a temporary blip due to the pandemic,” Shapiro told ����Ӱ��. “Yet, here we are a year later … and hardly any of those students who stayed out last year have come back.”

There were steeper drop-offs in the share of graduates taking time off rather than enrolling in college in high-poverty schools attended mostly by students of color compared to predominantly white and affluent schools — and the numbers did not self-correct a year later. 

Those disparities are yet another example, said Mauriell Amechi, a policy analyst with New America, of how COVID-19 has had a disproportionate impact on those who were already most vulnerable.

“The COVID-19 pandemic has and will continue to exacerbate some long-standing inequities facing historically underserved and marginalized populations in the American education system,” Amechi told ����Ӱ��. 

If decreased shares of students of color are able to access college amid the pandemic, he said, that’s a racial equity issue with consequences that will reverberate for decades.

“Students that delay enrollment are less likely to pursue a college education,” he said. “We can’t allow this issue to go unaddressed because it would only contribute to growing disparities in the American workforce.”

Back in Madison, there’s some optimistic news from Capital High, albeit anecdotal. Recently, Matt has been hearing from 2020 graduates who are now ready to return to their studies. Multiple students have reached out asking for transcripts and letters of recommendation. 

“Any student who had been college bound, I don’t think that they gave up on the dream completely,” she said.

Matt — who was named — distributes her contact information to graduating seniors, knowing that many don’t have parents who are familiar with the college process. She works with about 200 students at a time, comfortably within the 250-student maximum recommended by the American School Counselors Association, meaning she has the bandwidth to provide some extra help, even post-graduation. 

Nationwide, however, high school counselors work with an average of , and only 1 in 5 high schoolers attend a school sufficiently staffed with counselors. In such cases, many graduates seeking to finally enroll in college after multiple years off may have to navigate the path on their own.

Even for Matt’s students, she worries the extended time away from academics could make for a rough re-entry process.

“​​If you’re not practicing math everyday you start losing those skills,” she explained.

Given that, colleges and universities should make plans to help students re-adjust to school and studying, she said.

It’s an idea that Shapiro, at the Clearinghouse, echoes.

“If these students are to come back next year or two years further down the road,” he said, “they’re going to need more attention, more help, to make that transition.”