Overview

Among the six Persistence and Completion indicators, Business partnerships, Returning Adults, Living Wage, and Local Jobs Post-Secondary in the Southwest Florida region increased from last year’s report. Among Southwest Florida businesses that answered the question “Do you currently partner with any of the following education institutions?”, 54.1 percent responded “yes” in 2019, up from 42 percent in 2018. The percentage of Southwest Florida employers that offer opportunities to working adults to return to complete a degree or certification increased from 66.3 percent in 2018 to 73.0 percent in 2019. Hourly living wages and the average hourly wage also increased in the Southwest Florida region to $29.32 in 2019 compared to $27.73 in 2018. Finally, the percentage of Southwest Florida graduates still working at local jobs in Southwest Florida increased slightly to 41.8 percent in 2019 compared to 40 percent in 2018. First year retention rates decreased in the Southwest Florida region from 73.8 percent in 2017 to 70.1 percent in 2018. Similarly, after a strong improvement in on-time completion rates between 2016 and 2017, the ontime completion rate among students in the region who were pursuing post-secondary education decreased from 52.0 percent in 2017 to 48.0 percent in 2018. It should be noted that first year retention and on-time completion rates in the state of Florida increased during the same timeframes.

The Persistence and Completion Action Team pondered whether Hurricane Irma in September 2017 and more severe Red Tide could have impacted the first year retention and on-time completion rates reported in the 2018 data. In addition, the team noted that the region’s strong economy may have influenced students’ plans for post-secondary education. The students who stopped their secondary education prior to an on-time completion present an opportunity to increase our overall attainment rate in the upcoming year. For example, institutions could identify opportunities to create incentives, address policies and procedures that may have been barriers to completion, and recruit the students back to complete their degree or credential.

Data illustrating on-time, post-secondary completion rates by race and ethnicity for Southwest Florida are also provided in this report. Between 2014 to 2018, on-time post-secondary complete rates follow similar patterns across the races and ethnicities, although Black students generally have a lower on-time completion rate year-to-year compared to White and Latinx/Hispanic students.