Placement and RetentionLinking to End of Fiscal Year

or Student Exit

Bryan WilsonWashington State

Placement and RetentionLinking to End of Fiscal Year

or Student Exit

If linked to End of Fiscal Year, Then Placement is Measured:

Students exiting Q1: Employment during Q5 after exitStudents exiting Q2: Employment during Q4 after exitStudents exiting Q3: Employment during Q3 after exitStudents exiting Q4: Employment during Q2 after exit

This makes no sense from a policy or research perspective. Policy-makers do not want a complicated mixed bag of follow-up periods. Researchers time follow-up periods to treatments not accounting periods.

Placement and RetentionLinking to End of Fiscal Year

or Student Exit

If linked to End of Fiscal Year, Then Retention may be Measured:

Students exiting Q1: Employment during Q7 after exit among those employed during Q5 after exitStudents exiting Q2: Employment during Q6 after exit among those employed during Q4 after exitStudents exiting Q3: Employment during Q5 after exit among those employed during Q3 after exitStudents exiting Q4: Employment during Q4 among those

employed during Q2 after exit

Try explaining this to a busy policy-maker. Is this similar to how the results of any other public program is measured???

Placement and RetentionLinking to End of Fiscal Year

or Student Exit

If linked to student exit, then there can be consistent follow-periods for placement and retention, making it simpler for policy-makers to understand and logical from a research perspective.

But won’t this be difficult to implement?

No! Linking to the Q of student exit can be done just once a year. It only requires a simple computer program code saying, in effect: when student exit is ___ then match with quarter ___, when student exit is ___ then match with quarter ___, when student exit is ___ then match with quarter ____, and when student exit is ___ then match with quarter ___.