| | |

The Texas-Sized Battleground for High School Graduates

ByBlake Decker

In continuing our spring series on enrollment trends in higher education, it is no coincidence that one of the hottest topics of conversation currently circling is the “enrollment cliff.” From legislative hearings to board meetings to podcasts to newsprint, the pending downturn in higher education enrollment, closely linked to the “birth dearth” in the United States for the past two decades, is top-of-mind for many educational leaders and policymakers. For some folks in Texas, a pressing concern related to higher education enrollment is one that we will address in this blog post: trends in direct enrollment of high school graduates into higher education, including how many stay in Texas, how many migrate out-of-state, and which out-of-state institutions acquire the most Texans directly after high school.

the missing half: from high school to higher ed in Texas

The Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board (THECB) annually publishes a report that tracks “High school students who graduated in the school year prior to entering higher education the fall semester” (THECB). Using student ID numbers provided by the Texas Education Agency (TEA), the THECB matches student-level records from public 4-year, public 2-year, and independent colleges and universities in Texas to see which of those students matriculated in the fall semester immediately after graduating high school. The most-recently published data show that 47.7% (165,026 out of 346,013 trackable graduates) of the 2022-2023 high school graduating class from public schools and charter schools in Texas enrolled in Texas higher education institutions in fall 2023. For context, this statewide percentage of first-time-in-college (FTIC) students who were recent high school graduates was over 56% in fall 2009 and steadily decreased through fall 2020 to 44.9% before rebounding through fall 2023 to almost 48%. These data do not include those students who directly enrolled in out-of-state institutions, a data thread we will tug on for the rest of this blog post.

exploring the magnitude of high school graduates’ out-migration?

In order to measure out-of-state migration of newly-minted high school graduates, we used data reported to the federal Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System (IPEDS). Reports for the “Number of degree-seeking undergraduate students who enrolled in postsecondary institutions within 12-months of graduating high school for the first time in the fall, by state of institution and residence” is a required component for fall semesters in even-numbered years, as fall 2022 is the most-recent year of required reporting available.

OVERALL TRENDS: In the first visualization below, the data show the number of direct enrollees from high school who enrolled in any degree-granting institution in the United States in fall semesters from 2004 to 2022. Data are reported for Texas high school graduates who enrolled at Texas degree-granting institutions (“In-State”) and those who enrolled in degree-granting institutions out of Texas (“OOS”).

  • Overall, the total number (as shown at the end of each bar) of Texas high school students directly enrolling somewhere in higher education in the United States increased by 54% from 135,039 in 2004 to 207,403 in 2022.
  • The number of “In-State” enrollees jumped from 120,739 in 2004 to 177,918 in 2022 in the IPEDS data, which represented a 47% increase.
  • The number of “Out-of-State” enrollees grew 106% from 14,300 in 2004 to 29,485 in 2022.
  • In 2004, the “Out-of-State” migration group accounted for 10.6% of the overall direct enrollment of Texas high school graduates. In 2022, that percentage increased to 14.2%.
  • While the Texas-only data from the THECB indicated approximately 48% of Texas high school graduates directly enrolled in higher education within the state, when you add the 14% from the out-of-state direct enrollment group to the in-state cohort, Texas’s overall direct enrollment rate for recent high school graduates was right at 62%, a rate that matched the national average for fall 2022 (NCES).

where are they going?

TOP STATES: In the IPEDS data, there were more than 29,000 Texas high school graduates who directly enrolled in more than 1,500 different out-of-state institutions in 2022. As can be seen in the second visualization above, Texas’s neighbors directly to the north and east are the highest importers of Texas talent. In fall 2022, institutions in the state of Oklahoma reported enrolling 3,732 Texans who had recently graduated from high school, with colleges and universities in Arkansas a close second at 3,579. These two states accounted for just under 25% of all out-of-state migrations of Texas high school graduates who enrolled in fall 2022. Interestingly, the state of New York had the fourth-highest total of Texas transplants in the fall 2022 IPEDS data, with 1,337 students reported across the more than 100 institutions of higher education in the Empire State who enrolled Texans in the most recent data.

TOP UNIVERSITIES: The third visualization above shows which institutions in the country had at least 200 recent high school graduates from Texas who were FTICs in fall 2022. The data points for each institution include the number of Texans enrolled in the fall 2022 cohort, with the percentage representing the “market share” of Texans compared to the total number of FTIC students who were recent high school graduates at that institution. The University of Arkansas had the highest number of Texans at 2,563 in the 2022 data. What’s even more insightful is that Texans made up more than 36% of the 7,062 first-time-in-college, direct enrollment after high school students who started in Fayetteville in fall 2022. The University of Oklahoma also had 33% (1,509 out of 4,566) of their incoming, direct enrollment cohort in fall 2022 hailing from Texas, with Oklahoma State University rounding out the top-3 out-of-state destinations for Texas high school graduates in fall 2022. Although enrolling fewer than 400 Texans in their incoming class of recent high school graduates, Texans accounted for more than 17% of this cohort at New Mexico State University in fall 2022.

So What?

In the context of out-of-state migration of Texas high school graduates, the University of Arkansas is a fascinating case from a data perspective. Going back to 2000, IPEDS data showed that the “U of A” enrolled a total of 88 Texans (4%) out of 2,126 FTIC students who matriculated directly after high school. The Razorbacks eclipsed the 10% mark for Texas representation for incoming high school graduates in 2005 and the 20% mark in the fall of 2011. As shown above, the fall 2022 semester was the peak for the University of Arkansas in terms of direct enrollment of recent Texas high school graduates with 2,563. This number of Texans trailed only the number of Arkansans (2,778) in the incoming cohort, leading one Arkansas publication to go so far as to label the U of A as “The University of Texas At Arkansas.” Aggressive long-term recruitment of Texas high school students coupled with non-resident tuition award scholarships that target high-performing high school graduates from bordering states led to an almost 1:1 ratio of Arkansas and Texas residents in the incoming direct enrollment class in fall 2022.

With all of that said, the University of Arkansas is certainly not an “n of 1.” Many other universities are employing similar recruitment and enticement efforts to lure Texas high school graduates away from the state. In light of the enrollment cliff already being experienced in states across the country, coupled with Texas’s projected increases in high school graduates through the next decade, the competition for Texas high school graduates will continue to grow. It is incumbent on the collective “industry” of higher education in Texas to tap into the “missing half” of Texas high school graduates who do not directly enroll in Texas institutions while also combatting the growth of out-of-state migration of Texas talent.