To accomplish its mission, the Technical College of the Lowcountry (TCL) has Institutional goals and outcomes for Student Achievement and regularly assesses progress toward the achievement of those goals. Progress toward the goals is reported annually to College administration, faculty, and stakeholders. These goals align with The South Carolina Technical College System established Academic Success and Performance Benchmarks and include four (4) measures:
- Graduate Placement Rates
- Licensure Exam Pass Rates
- Fall-to-Spring Persistence Rates
- Student Success Rate
Student Success
Graduate Placement Rate target of 80% was met and exceeded by a rate of 97%.
Licensure Exam Pass Rate target of 80% or 2% improvement from the previous year was met and exceeded by a rate of 92%.
Fall-to-Spring Persistence Rate of 71% or 1% improvement from previous year was not met with a current rate of 67%.
Success Rate target of 54% , which is 90% of the SC CHE Success Rate Criteria, was not met with the current 45% rate.
Definitions
Graduate Placement Rates
Graduate placement rates reflect the success of graduates with respect to employment or continued education. Graduates who are deceased, disabled, and not actively seeking employment (e.g., active military) are excluded from the placement rate.
Licensure First-time Pass Rates
The Commission on Higher Education (CHE) has the responsibility for making available to the General Assembly “student scores on professional examinations with detailed information on state and national means, passing scores, and pass rates, as available, and with information on such scores over time, and the number of students taking each exam. Colleges report the number of examinees, the number of first-time examinees, the number of first-time examinees who pass, and the percentage of first-time examinees who pass for the list of licensure exams identified by CHE. The reporting guidelines specify that colleges report those who took exams between April 1 and the following March 31st.
Persistence Rates
Persistence rates (retention rates) are a commonly used student progress measure for both two-year and four-year institutions. The definitions for these rates typically use a fall term cohort (often the first-time freshman cohort). The most frequently used rates are fall-to-spring persistence and fall-to-fall persistence. The data below is based on the National Community College Benchmark Project (NCCBP) definition of fall-to-spring persistence. The definition used as a means to calculate credit student next-term persistence rate is Spring Term: Students from the denominator who enrolled in the subsequent spring at the end of term divided by the number of fall term total credit students at the end of fall term.
Student Success
The Student Success Rate is a cohort-based measure of graduation, transfer to another post-secondary institution in South Carolina, or continue enrollment after three years of first-time enrollment. The cohort includes all first-time freshmen enrolling in degree, diploma, or certificate programs in each fall semester. The following formula is used to calculate the Student Success Rate. The total number of fall semester first-time freshmen (150% completers plus 150% transfers plus still enrolled at the college) divided by the fall semester first-time freshmen.
Graduate Production Rate
The Graduate Production Rate is a measure that reflects the college’s fulfillment of their workforce development mission. This rate will include all awards for decrees, diplomas, and certificates and removes time bound and demographic restrictions. This will measure unduplicated headcount of graduates and express this as a percentage or rate. The formula for calculating the Graduate Production Rate is taking the total number of graduates unduplicated headcount and dividing by the fall term unadjusted FTE.