The number of academic credits a student takes per year has ties to their likelihood to graduate and complete their college journey, a new report from course scheduling company Ad Astra found.
Sarah Collins
Ad Astra’s 2024 Benchmark Report – released on Feb. 20 – dives into data from its partner institutions to look at potential relationships between access to courses, credits taken per school year, and college completion. It analyzed data about 1.3 million students, coming from two- and four-year public or private institutions.
One of the characteristics that sets this report apart is how it separates students not only by part-time versus full-time, but also by splitting within those two categories themselves in terms of annual credits taken, what the report authors refer to as ‘degree velocity.’
Part-time students are separated between those taking 1-11 (‘walking’), 12-17 (‘speed-walking’), or 18-23 annual credits (‘jogging’). Similarly, full-time enrollees are split between those taking 24-29 credits a year (‘running’) and those taking 30 or more (‘sprinting’).
A student’s likelihood to complete their academic pursuit – and to even keep enrolled – was found to correlate to the number of credits they took a year, according to the report. For instance, ‘walking’ students had a 29% retention rate and a 7% rate of completion. But student who were even just one tier up, ‘speed-walking,’ saw retention rates jump to 53% and likelihood of completing to 26%.
Most students who are ‘walking’ (71%) don’t even continue past their first year in college, according to the report.
Recognizing this effect presents Ad Astra’s partner colleges and universities a feasible goal for their students, Ad Astra President Sarah Collins said. Instead of trying to get part-time students to move to full-time, they can try to get students to increase their annual credits by a smaller amount and still see improvements in outcomes.
