AIR Experts Play Key Role in 50th Edition of the Digest of Education Statistics, Highlighting Data From Prekindergarten to Graduate School

Washington, D.C. — Experts from the American Institutes for Research played an integral role in producing the Digest of Education Statistics: 2014, the 50th in a series released by the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES).

The Digest, released on April 28, 2016, is a broad compendium of data on American education from prekindergarten through graduate school. It contains both new data and data on historical trends, and it covers all aspects of education in the United States as well as international comparisons.

AIR analysts and editorial staff worked with data from complex surveys and conducted statistical analyses and tests to create many of the 594 statistical tables as well as develop statistical graphs and descriptive text for the volume. AIR staff also designed the tools used to plan the volume and tracked each of the hundreds of components through all stages of development, quality assurance, review, and production.

AIR has provided key support for the volume since 2004 and been a contributor since 1999. The first Digest was released in 1962.

Key findings from this year include:

• Between 1990 and 2013, the percentage of 16- to 24-year-olds who were high school dropouts—known as the status dropout rate—declined from 12.1 to 6.8 percent. Although the status dropout rate declined for both blacks and Hispanics during this period, their rates (7.3 and 11.7 percent, respectively) remained higher than the rate for whites (5.1 percent) in 2013.
• In fall 2014, public schools enrolled 35.2 million elementary students and 14.8 million secondary students, according to projections. Public elementary enrollment is expected increase 7 percent between 2014 and 2024, while public secondary enrollment is expected to increase 3 percent during the same period.
• From 1976 to 2013, the percentage of college students who are Hispanic rose from 4 to 16 percent and the percentage who are black rose from 10 to 15 percent.

The full report, Digest of Education Statistics, 2014, is available on the National Center for Education Statistics website.

About AIR
Established in 1946, with headquarters in Washington, D.C., the American Institutes for Research (AIR) is a nonpartisan, not-for-profit organization that conducts behavioral and social science research and delivers technical assistance both domestically and internationally in the areas of health, education and workforce productivity. For more information, visit www.air.org.

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