• Introduction
• Highlights

This report uses postsecondary transcript data collected as part of the National Education Longitudinal Study of 1988 (NELS:88/2000) to examine aspects of the (1) postsecond- ary attainment, (2) postsecondary attendance patterns, (3) postsecondary curriculum, and (4) postsecondary performance of a cohort of approximately 9,500¹ individuals (ages 26-27) who were in the 12th grade in 1992 and attended institutions of postsecondary education² during the period 1992-2000. Most of these individuals were eighth-graders in 1988 and graduated from high school in 1992.³ All tables in this report follow their histories through December 31, 2000.

In addition to the postsecondary variables that were built from data recorded from postsecondary transcripts, this report uses data collected from previous waves of NELS:88, including high school transcript data. Thus, it is possible to examine the relationship between postsecondary histories and outcomes and earlier high school experiences, attainment, and coursetaking.

The evidence of student records as set forth in postsecondary transcript information offers cogent documentation of precisely what college students study, when and where they study it, and how well they perform in each course. It is important to note that transcript records do not do anything more than that. They do not tell us how much students have learned, whether the learning is retained, or what classroom experiences, teaching methods, or delivery systems produced the best results. For any one student, they provide only an outline of educational history, but an outline that suggests productive paths to analysis.

The collection of tables in the full report is designed to illustrate some of the range and analytical promise of the NELS:88/2000 Postsecondary Transcript Files. Highlights include the following:

• Of all likely postsecondary participants, 45 percent earned a bachelor’s degree or higher by age 26 or 27 (table A).
• Of those who earned more than 10 college credits, 51 percent earned a bachelor’s degree or higher by age 26 or 27.
• Of those who earned more than 10 college credits and attended a 4-year college at any time, 67 percent earned a bachelor’s degree or higher by age 26 or 27.
• Eleven percent of postsecondary participants earned 10 or fewer credits by age 26 or 27.

• Of all undergraduates who earned more than 10 credits, 20 percent attended institutions in more than one state as undergraduates. Also, 24 percent of bachelor's degree recipients attended institutions in more than one state as undergraduates.
• More than half of Hispanic/Latino students (vs. 37 percent of White students and 41 percent of Black students)⁴ began their postsecondary careers in community colleges (table B).
• A majority of undergraduates attended school during summer terms.

• Students whose highest level of mathematics in high school was at the trigonometry, precalculus, or calculus level had bachelor’s degree completion rates above 60 percent; for students who completed a calculus course in high school, the bachelor’s degree completion rate was 83 percent (derived from table C).
• Bachelor’s degree majors in business fields earned a higher mean number of credits in computer-related coursework than those in any other fields except mathematics/computer science and engineering; bachelor’s degree majors in engineering earned a higher mean number of credits in computer science than bachelor’s degree majors in any other fields except mathematics/computer science.
• Bachelor’s degree majors in the social sciences earned a higher mean number of credits in foreign language and international studies combined than bachelor’s degree majors in any other fields except the humanities.

• Students whose true institution of first attendance⁵ was “selective” or “highly selective” had higher undergraduate grade point averages than those who attended less selective institutions (except for institutions that were not ratable).
• A majority of students who started out in community colleges took one or more remedial courses, compared with 19 percent of students who started in doctoral degree-granting institutions and 30 per- cent of those who started in other types of 4-year institutions.

¹Of the approximately 12,100 students in the NELS:88/2000 panel, about 9,600 (75.2 percent, weighted) reported having attended at least one postsecondary institution. Based on received in-scope transcripts and, when transcripts were not received, other corroborating information (from National Student Loan Data Systems files, Advanced Placement and College Entrance Examination Board tests, and other student responses), about 9,400 (71.2 percent, weighted) were judged as "likely participants." Based only on received in-scope transcripts, about 8,900 (66.8 percent, weighted) were "known participants." See discussion of the determination of likely participation in section I and appendix B of the full report.

²"Postsecondary institutions" include not only 4-year colleges and universities, 2-year colleges, and other degree-granting institutions but also noncollegiate institutions awarding less-than-2-year certificates.

³Of the high school graduates in the NELS cohort, 3.3 percent had received a diploma or GED by December of 1991, and 1 percent of those who entered postsecondary education had done so by the same date. The tables in this report use the bracketing dates of 1992-2000 to mark the modal year of high school graduation and date of postsecondary entry (1992). By confining the universe to those survey participants who were in the 12th grade in 1992, early high school graduates, dropouts, students who had been retained in grade, and those who were not in school in 1992 are excluded. The populations under study are thus skewed toward higher levels of academic preparation and performance.

⁴Race categories exclude Hispanic origin unless specified.

⁵True institution of first attendance excludes postsecondary institutions attended while the student was still in high school, institutions attended in the summer between high school graduation and fall semester entry (unless the institution was the same for both periods), and "false starts" (i.e., when the student withdraws without earning any additive credits from the ostensible first postsecondary institution in the first term of attendance but enrolls in another institution and earns credits at that institution at a later date).