May 23, 2002

More North Dakota Graduates Go To College Than National Average

Although the number of high school graduates in North Dakota continues to decline, a high percentage of those students go on to college. In 1998 approximately 70 percent of North Dakota’s 8,670 high school graduates (down from 10,850 in 1970) went on to college. That college attendance rate is 5 percent higher than the national average of approximately 65 percent.

Of North Dakota high school graduates who graduated from high school within the last 12 months and went on to college, 84 percent were enrolled in North Dakota colleges or universities in the fall of 1998, according to the latest Economic Brief from the North Dakota State Data Center at North Dakota State University. Those numbers are comparable to the national average of 80 percent of students attending college in their home state. Thus 16 percent or 940 students left North Dakota to attend college.

Of all freshman students enrolled in North Dakota colleges and universities (who graduated from high school within the past 12 months), 68 percent were North Dakota residents in the fall of 1998. That means 32 percent of college freshman students (2,354) who graduated from high school within the past 12 months came from out-of-state to attend college in North Dakota.

"This is a significant number, especially when you consider that roughly 20 percent of out-of-state students have remained in North Dakota for at least one year after college graduation," said Richard Rathge, director of the North Dakota State Data Center. That places North Dakota with the ninth highest proportion of out-of-state first-year students in the nation.

The result is that North Dakota had an overall net in-migration of 1,414 students (freshman students entering the state to attend college minus freshman students leaving the state to attend college). "These figures indicate that higher education is a significant importer of new residents to North Dakota, something we need to aggressively expand," said Rathge.

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Source: Richard Rathge, (701) 231-8621, richard_rathge@ndsu.nodak.edu
Editor: Tom Jirik, (701) 231-9629, tjirik@ndsuext.nodak.edu

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