Advancing Postsecondary Opportunity, Completion, and Productivity: Essential Performance Indicators for Kansas and Selected Peer States. 2012-2013

This report portrays various performance indicators that are intended to facilitate an assessment of the postsecondary education system in Kansas. Descriptive statistics are presented for Kansas and five other comparison states as well as the nation. Comparison states were selected according to the degree of similarity of population characteristics, capital advantages, and market conditions. Indicators in the first section, "Target Outcomes," assess progress towards the key goal of increasing the number of people who enroll in college and complete a high-quality degree as efficiently as possible. The second section, "Leverage Points," provides indicators relevant to intermediate outcomes associated with postsecondary degree production, including academic preparation, affordability, and institutional effectiveness. The final section, "Policy Instruments," focuses on some of the system resources and policies needed to influence leverage points and target outcomes. The following are appended: (1) Enrollment in International Perspective; (2) Educational Attainment in International Perspective; (3) Weights Used for Performance Scores; and (4) Endnotes.