NEWS for North Dakotans
Agriculture Communication, North Dakota State University
7 Morrill Hall, Fargo, ND 58105-5665

December 17, 1998

Data Show More N.D. High School Graduates Going to College

About 70 percent of North Dakota high school graduates continued their education by enrolling at a college somewhere, according to 1996 data contained in Vol. 7 No. 12 of The Economic Briefs, released recently from the North Dakota State Data Center at North Dakota State University. North Dakota's figure for college enrollment is about 10 percentage points higher than the national average of 60 percent.

"The high proportion of students in North Dakota going to college reflects an understanding of the value of higher education in our state," says Richard Rathge, data center director. "This feeling is supported by salary studies. For example, a recent national survey of adults age 18 and older revealed that a person with a bachelor's degree earned nearly twice the salary of those with only a high school degree--$40,478 compared to $22,895."

Of the North Dakota resident first-year students enrolled in college in the fall of 1996 (who graduated from high school within the past 12 months), 80 percent were enrolled in North Dakota colleges or universities. This was comparable to the national average of 81 percent of students attending college in their home state. Put another way, 20 percent, or 1,182 students, left North Dakota to attend college.

Of all first-year students enrolled in any of North Dakota's institutions of higher education, 65 percent were North Dakota residents in the fall of 1996. This means that 2,527 students came from out-of-state to attend college in North Dakota. Therefore, North Dakota colleges saw an overall net gain of 1,345 students in 1996 (first-year students entering the state minus first-year students leaving).

In fact, North Dakota had the ninth highest proportion of out-of-state to in-state first-year students in 1996. That fall, 35 percent of first-year students enrolled in North Dakota colleges or universities were residents of other states.

At the same time, a long-term trend points to a problem: the number of public high school graduates in North Dakota has declined during the past few decades, from 10,850 in 1970 to an estimated 8,670 in 1998. The number is projected to drop to 6,614 by the year 2009.

"As the number of high school students decline in our state, institutions of higher education may need to rely more heavily on out-of-state students to maintain enrollments. This may be problematic in the future, since the proportion of students we draw from other states is quite high and enrollments in the North Dakota University System are down from the peak in 1993. This suggests that policy makers in the state may need to explore other options, including attracting more nontraditional-age students," Rathge says.

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Source: Richard Rathge (701) 231-8621

Editor: Dean Hulse (701) 231-6136

Click here for a pdf version of this graphic.

Click here for a pdf version of this graphic.