​​SDBOR College Matriculation Dashboard

Over the last several decades, an increasing percentage of South Dakota’s high school graduates have chosen to pursue postsecondary education following graduation from high school.  As recently as 1986, only about 35.5 percent of South Dakota’s high school graduates continued on to college in the fall term after high school graduation; by 2010, this figure was 71.8 percent, fifth highest in the United States (Source: Postsecondary Education Opportunity, 2015).

The SDBOR College Matriculation Dashboard presents interactive data for several recent classes of South Dakota high school graduates.  Specifically, the dashboard reports on the percentage of high school graduates who enrolled in any US postsecondary institution within 16 months of graduation.  For students with one or more enrollment records, additional information is presented about specific colleges attended.  Data can be disaggregated by high school, gender, race, and several other demographic variables. 

Looking the most recent data, several observations can be made about the enrollments of South Dakota high school graduates:

• Of the state’s 8,834 graduates in 2016-17, 68.0 percent enrolled in a postsecondary institution within 16 months of high school graduation.  A total of 53.9 percent of students enrolled in an in-state institution, with 34.1 percent enrolling in one of the state’s public universities.
• Overall, matriculation rates are much higher for women (70.5 percent across all years) than for men (63.6 percent across all years).  Rates tend to be comparatively low for students from racial minorities, students with low ACT scores, and low-income students.
  
• SDSU and USD are by far the leading destinations of South Dakota graduates who enroll in postsecondary institutions after high school.

Source: National Student Clearinghouse (NSC); South Dakota Department of Education

Notes: Data reflect enrollments in NSC-reporting institutions only, which are believed to comprise roughly 97 percent of all postsecondary enrollments in the United States.  Data reflect both full-time and part-time enrollments.  It should be noted that several institutions in South Dakota – notably, National American University – do not report enrollment data to NSC.  Consequently, the dashboard likely underestimates total continuation to college.  Data are not shown for filtered groups smaller than ten.