Public community colleges awarded more than 1.52 million credentials in the 2023-24 academic year, according to recently released data from the U.S. Education Department.
The total number of credentials dropped in academic year (AY) 2019-20 (the first year of the pandemic) and only began to recover in the most recent year reported. However, the trends varied across the types of credentials awarded over this six-year period.
Most notably, with the exception of the 2019-20 academic year, the number of short-term credentials (less than one year) awarded increased each year, resulting in a 27% increase between 2017-18 to 2023-24. Conversely, community colleges awarded fewer associate degrees in 2023-24 (804,537) compared to 2017-18 (838,219). Community colleges did award more associate degrees in 2023-24 than the prior year, which was the lowest number of awards (795,177) in the period studied.
Uptick in multiple credentials
During any academic year, students may obtain more than one credential from an institution. The chart below provides information on the number of credentials awarded and the number of students receiving credentials. On the all awards tab, there are three elements:
- The total number of awards (regardless of type of award)
- The number of students who earned an award
- The average number of awards per student
For example, in the 2023-24 academic year, community colleges conferred 1,524,188 credentials to 1,141,389 students, resulting in 1.34 credentials per student.
These data indicate that the average number of credentials each student earns in a given year has been increasing from 1.262 per student in 2017-18, up to 1.336 in 2023-24. This may represent the increasing trend to award stackable credentials, or shorter-term certificates to indicate career and academic preparedness.
To better understand the trends, the data are presented separately for each credential type reported in IPEDS. Very short credentials[i] (fewer than12 weeks) increased from around 64,700 in 2019-20, up to 79,000 in 2023-24 (a 22% increase), with the rate of multiple credentials also increasing slightly.
The rate of moderately short certificates (at least 12 weeks but less than one year) also increased over the reported period, rising from around 29,400 in 2019-20, to 37,600 in 2023-24 (a 28% increase); however, the number of credentials per student remained steady. This pattern was similar for the medium- to long-term certificates awarded by community colleges, but the percentage increase was much lower, increasing by only 11% between 2017-18 and 2023-24.
The pattern across the seven years was different for associate degrees. The number of associate degrees awarded peaked in 2020-21 at roughly 866,000 degrees, but dropped to 795,000 in 2022-23, before rising slightly in 2023-24 to 805,000 degrees awarded. This represents a drop of 4% from 2017-18, and is 7% fewer than the peak in 2020-21.
At the same time, the number of multiple credentials among associate-degree earners increased from 2017-18 to 2023-24, from 1.09 per student, to 1.12 per student — and the number of students decreased by 7%.
The number of bachelor’s degrees awarded by community colleges increased from 2017-18 to 2022-23, before dropping slightly in 2022-23. This drop is, in part, due to colleges being removed from the analysis because they were no longer predominantly associate-degree-granting institutions.
[i] Very short and moderately short credentials were not separately reported prior to 2019-20 and therefore are not displayed in the charts.
