The Postsecondary Readiness Reports are summary reports that provide data on a variety of measures of postsecondary readiness among cohorts of graduating high school seniors, alongside longitudinal data on their postsecondary enrollment and/or degree or award completion up to six years later. These reports provide both a statewide and high school-specific portrait of Iowa high school graduates’ postsecondary education participation.

Schools can use their data, in combination with statewide data, to benchmark progress toward locally defined goals as they relate to postsecondary readiness by examining postsecondary enrollment and completion data. Reflecting a statewide responsibility to ensure Iowa students are ready for life after high school, these reports are provided publicly to assist school officials in collaboration with parents and the general public to meet these goals.

In August 2016, the Iowa State Board of Education adopted a definition of college and career readiness. That definition can be found here.

There are multiple indicators of college readiness available to states, districts and schools. Many of these measures, such as ACT’s college readiness benchmarks and the Postsecondary Readiness Index included in the Iowa School Performance Profiles, focus on student performance and behaviors during high school that are associated with college readiness. The Postsecondary Readiness Reports differ in that they include not only these college readiness measures but also the first statewide data on students’ actual enrollment and degree/award attainment after high school graduation.

The reports do not rate schools on college readiness. There are many factors outside of the school setting that influence the college readiness of students, and those are not reflected in these reports. The Postsecondary Readiness Reports are one tool schools can use to help determine how well current measures gauge students’ college readiness. They can serve as a catalyst for those at the secondary and postsecondary levels to determine what factors are associated with higher rates of postsecondary enrollment and degree/award attainment.

The reports are updated annually each spring.

Data in the reports are made available through Iowa's State Longitudinal Data System (SLDS) partnership. The SLDS is a collaborative effort between multiple organizations to bring together quality, timely longitudinal data that are used to improve education and student outcomes in Iowa. To compile the data needed for these reports, the Iowa Department of Education contributes to the SLDS a list of public high school graduates and their demographic and school information and Iowa College Aid provides data on high school graduates' FAFSA completion status. Iowa community colleges and the three public universities provide the enrollment, remedial/developmental course enrollment, and completion/award data for their institutions. For students attending private and/or out-of-state postsecondary institutions, National Student Clearinghouse enrollment and award data are utilized. The National Student Clearinghouse is a nonprofit and nongovernmental organization that provides nationwide coverage to postsecondary enrollment and degree records.

Postsecondary enrollment and award data are provided through three sources: Iowa Board of Regents (for public Regent universities in Iowa); Division of Community Colleges & Workforce Preparation (for public community colleges in Iowa); and the National Student Clearinghouse (for in-state private colleges and universities and all out-of-state colleges and universities). NSC includes data from approximately 97% of postsecondary institutions in the U.S. Students who enrolled in a private or non-Iowa postsecondary institution that does not report data to NSC or who enrolled in a postsecondary institution outside the U.S. are not included in the postsecondary enrollment data. Postsecondary institutions that do not report to NSC tend to fall into one of the following categories: cosmetology schools, massage therapy schools, schools of chiropractic medicine, bible colleges, foreign schools and military academies. Remedial course-taking data are not available from NSC. As a result, developmental education enrollment is not reported for private or out-of-state postsecondary institutions.

Data on Iowa high school graduates who participate in a registered apprenticeship following high school graduation are in the process of being incorporated into the Postsecondary Readiness Reports (PRR) through data provided by Iowa Workforce Development and the U.S. Department of Labor. While school-level data and integration with the existing enrollment and award rates reported on the PRR will not be available until a future release, the State Summary document includes data on state-level registered apprenticeship participation of Iowa public high school graduates. Note that this data does not include all students who participated in or completed a registered apprenticeship program while in high school.

Data in the reports are made available through Iowa's State Longitudinal Data System (SLDS) partnership. In addition to the data privacy and security guidelines that govern the data contributed by each SLDS partner, the SLDS has its own data privacy and security standards. For more information on these standards, see the Privacy, Cybersecurity, and Data Disclosure sections of the Data Governance Manual.

In addition to these protections, data suppression is used in reports to prevent any possibility of constructive identification. When there are fewer than six students in a group, those data are suppressed in these reports.

Two changes were introduced in June 2023. First, Iowa’s community colleges updated a small number of student records from the high school graduating Classes of 2012 through 2021 to reflect their Iowa community college enrollment and/or awards. This change resulted in an increase of around one percentage point in postsecondary enrollment overall for the Classes of 2018 through 2021 and a less than one percentage point increase for the Classes of 2012 through 2017.

Second, a non-binary gender option was added to the state data collection for the Class of 2022, although many districts did not immediately add that category to their student information systems.

Switched to grouping students based on the year they graduated from high school – Prior to December 2018, the PRR grouped students into cohorts based on the year they entered ninth grade. In December 2018 the PRR began grouping students by their high school graduating class (the year they earned their high school diploma).

Added ability to filter by high school graduation on-time status – All reports now contain a filter that can be used to constrain the population of students included to those who graduated from high school “on-time” (within four years) or to include all students who graduated in a given year, regardless of how long they were enrolled in high school.

Added first fall enrollment and remedial course data – In order to provide data on more recent high school graduating classes, enrollment and remedial course data for only the fall immediately following high school graduation (rather than the full first year following high school graduation) was added to theIn order to provide data on postsecondary enrollment and remedial course-taking more quickly after a new graduating class completes high school, data from the fall immediately following high school graduation was added to the Enrollment Trends and Remedial Course Trends reports. These data are in addition to the postsecondary enrollment and remedial course-taking data available from the full first year following high school graduation.

Yes, all of the data currently accessible in the reports reflects all of the methodology changes applied in December 2018.

Students who are not ready for college-level coursework are often placed into remedial courses (called “developmental courses” at colleges and universities). These courses cover below-college-level content in the particular subject area in which students are deemed unprepared for college-level work. Whether remedial education is required and, if so, the process for placing students into such courses varies by college. Remedial class credits do not count toward a degree and usually must be completed prior to, or in some cases concurrently with, attempting college-level coursework.

Since FY14, the number of remedial/developmental credits earned statewide has declined significantly. However, each college in Iowa has its own approach to assessing students’ academic needs and providing academic support, and both community colleges and the Regent universities have begun to offer alternatives to the traditional developmental/remedial course approach. These alternatives include supplemental instruction, adding lab components to transfer courses, and/or a paired co-requisite approach where transfer courses and developmental courses are taken together. Thus, the decline in remedial/developmental coursetaking reflects a decline in such offerings statewide and should not be interpreted as a decline in remedial need among postsecondary enrollees.