A New institutional effectiveness metric operationalized (niemo)

Community colleges have steadily gained national attention as the postsecondary sector
that serves a significant proportion of all undergraduate students and historically has served the
majority of underserved students. As public attention has turned towards community colleges, so
has public scrutiny, largely informed by the established federal metrics reported through the
Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). IPEDS implemented the Graduation
Rate (GR) metric in the early 1990s which became the primary federal data point for research,
accountability, and public consumption. This product dissertation examines the current state of
institutional effectiveness measures, with historical context and alternative measures noted, and
highlights the limitations of the single GR metric. Although an important metric, the limitations
include the omission of significant populations of students that community colleges serve,
leading to a limited construct of institutional performance and effectiveness for community
colleges.
Following a review of current state and historical overview, this product dissertation
presents a method for measuring a large population of students that is not considered in any of
the institutional effectiveness metrics currently employed: the non-credential-seeking student
population (those students who attend community colleges for reasons other than obtaining a
degree or certificate). This population of students has been found to be a significant size and is
intentionally using the community college for purposes other than obtaining a credential; hence,
this author argues that they should be included in institutional effectiveness metrics. This
dissertation presents a two-year review of how RSC has endeavored to measure this student
population in terms of completion outcomes, and shares the tools developed, replicability,
implications for a new institutional effectiveness metric, and implications for further research.