Kentuckians starting college

In the fall of 2008:

• 33,761 Kentucky residents enrolled as first-time students in Kentucky undergraduate programs that award degrees or certificates.
• 5,500 Kentucky residents enrolled in equivalent programs in other states.
• 39,261 Kentucky residents total started work toward college degrees or other postsecondary certificates.
• That's an increase of 1,837 from the matching 2006 numbers.

Also in the fall of 2008:

• 7,388 residents of other states and 131 people whose residency could not be determined enrolled as first time students in Kentucky undergraduate programs that award degrees or certificates.
• 41,280 people total started their college studies in Kentucky.
• That's an increase of 1,279 from 2006.

Those figures come from  Enrollment in Postsecondary Institutions, Fall 2008; Graduation Rates, 2002 and 2005 Cohorts; and Financial Statistics, Fiscal Year 2008 First Look,  released by the National Center for Educational Statistics in April 2010.

Very loosely, it's worth comparing those 39 thousand Kentuckians starting college to around 46 thousand who finished high school earlier that year (41,275 public graduates, with the rest as an estimate from private schools and home-schools)

It's also worth comparing the 39 thousand enrolling to around 56 thousand who should have graduated (51,339 eighth-graders participating in spring 2004 public-school testing, and the rest as an estimate of nonpublic students that year.)

And, as always, it's worth looking forward to a longitudinal data system that will let us track student progress much more confidently starting a few years from now.