Back to Goal 6From Measures and Milestones 2002
p. 28-29, published 2002
An economy that raises the bar of expectations with each passing year compels us to be diligent in our efforts to create a system of educational excellence, from prekindergarten to our universities, that welcomes, encourages, and advances the adventure of learning. Citizens rank this as the fourth most important goal for our future, and they have seen progress. Overall, Goal 7 ranks sixth on our progress scale for 2002, up from eighth in 2000.
Table 1: Where Citizens Think We Stand
Kentucky enrollment rates changed little during the latter part of the 1990s and remained consistently below the national average. However, neither of these figures include technical colleges. If technical colleges are included to calculate this estimate, the college-going rate increases to 56 percent in Kentucky for 2000. However, Kentucky still remains below the 1999 national average of 63 percent. Moreover, Kentucky’s six-year graduation rate of first-time freshmen in public four-year colleges is approximately 30 percent—considerably lower than the national six-year graduation rate of 56 percent.
While it remains an important foundation, the knowledge-based, technologically advanced economy of today has rendered a high school education the minimum requirement for labor force entry. In most cases, it is no longer sufficient preparation for today’s workplace or economic independence. The high school dropout rate helps track how much of our population is being left behind economically. The trend in high school dropouts has been fairly stagnant throughout the 1990s. Nationally, in October 2000, 4.8 percent of young adults aged 15 to 24 who were enrolled in high school in 1999 were no longer in school, compared to an estimated 5 percent in Kentucky.
Figure 2: Annual Percent of Kentucky High School Students Who Drop Out, 1991-2000
According to a 1993-94 National Center for Education Statistics (NCES) survey, Kentucky ranks high among the states in terms of preparation of its teachers. However, significant numbers of classes are still being taught by teachers who do not have adequate collegiate preparation in subject areas, especially in the fields of math and science.
Goals for the improvement of postsecondary education in Kentucky include increasing undergraduate enrollment by 20,000 students by the year 2020. To meet this challenge, the Commonwealth will have to increasingly appeal to its nontraditional students—those age 25 and older. Unfortunately, our data show that the percentage of this student sector has not been increasing over the last decade, remaining around one third of the total undergraduate student population. If technical college enrollment is included in the calculation of nontraditional undergraduate enrollment rates, however, the 2000 rate rises to about 31 percent.
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