For the current school year, South Carolina high schools do not have to submit a mandatory report detailing the college destinations of their graduating classes.
The SC Education Oversight Committee (EOC) purchased access to the National Student Clearinghouse Student Tracker data for the first time in 2022, giving all SC high schools access to graduation and enrollment data from the nearly 3,600 colleges and universities that participate in the Clearinghouse system, covering 97 percent of two- and four-year colleges in the country.
Each high school has received individualized reports for Classes 2015-2022, containing data on college enrollment, persistence, and completion within six years.
Purchasing the report allowed for the suspension of the college freshman reporting requirements of the South Carolina Code of Laws. The suspension occurred with the passage of a proviso in the 2023-2024 Appropriation Act.
“The data that schools receive from the National Student Clearinghouse is a significant step in providing clarity once students leave SC high schools and move on to postsecondary learning,” said EOC Executive Director Dana Yow. “Each high school can now see what percentage of their graduates enter any postsecondary institution – in-state or out-of-state – and if those students persist into their sophomore year and ultimately receive a degree or credential within six years. Using this data to replace portions of the College Freshman Report requirement also removes that burden from SC educators.”
Curious about your high school’s Post-Grad trends? Check out EOC’s Post-Grad Dashboard.
EOC Data Visualization Specialists created a Post-Grad Dashboard to visually illustrate the National Student Clearinghouse data. There are three dashboards which show the following data:
Percentage of graduates who enrolled in college the fall after graduation
Top majors of students
Where students are attending college
Dashboard data can be broken down to very specific points. For example, the Top Majors dashboard shows that 147 Kershaw County high school students from the graduation classes of 2014 to 2022 majored in Liberal Arts and Sciences and can further pinpoint the number of students from a specific graduation class and a specific high school.
More data insights:
Health Professions and Related Clinical Sciences are top majors for SC high school graduates from the class of 2014-2022
For the reported years, 59 percent of SC high school graduates enrolled in college in the fall following graduation.
The dashboard can be viewed at https://dashboardsc.sc.gov/postgrad.