What is Student Right-To-Know?

Student Right-To-Know is a federal law that requires all colleges and universities to disclose certain information to students. This handout provides the information that a college must provide to students on graduation rates and transfer-out rates for full-time students seeking degrees at Northwest Technical College (NTC).

What is a Graduation Rate and What is a Transfer-Out Rate?

Federal regulations specify how to calculate the graduation and transfer rates. The rates come from a study of Northwest Technical College students who started at the college in the fall of 2020. The study includes all first-time students who enrolled full-time that fall and were seeking to earn a degree, diploma or certificate at the college. The graduation rate is the percentage of these students who graduated from NTC within three years. The transfer-out rate is the percentage of these students who did not graduate from NTC, but instead transferred to another college or university within three years.

What do I Need to Know About These Rates?

These rates do not report on all students at Northwest Technical College. The 62 first-time, full-time students in the study were about 8 percent of all students enrolled in fall of 2020.

What are the Graduation and Transfer-Out Rates for Northwest Technical College Students and how do They Compare to Rates for Other Colleges?

• The graduation rate for NTC was 50 percent.
• The transfer-out rate for NTC was 19 percent.
• The combination of the graduation rate and the transfer-out rate for NTC was 69 percent. The national average combined rate for similar colleges was 48 percent.

Why Don’t More Northwest Technical College Students Graduate or Transfer in Three Years?

• Some students take jobs before they graduate;
• Students who switch from full-time to part-time enrollment or “stop out” for one or more semesters are more likely to take more than three years to graduate;
• Other students delay their education for personal, family or financial reasons.

Disaggregated Student Right-to-Know Graduation and Transfer-out Rates
Northwest Technical College – Bemidji	Graduation Rate	Transfer-out Rate	Combined Rate
Total Cohort	50%	19%	69%
Race Ethnicity
American Indian or Alaska Native	*	*	*
Asian	*	*	*
Black or African American	*	*	*
Hispanic of any race	*	*	*
Native Hawaiian or Other Pacific Islander	*	*	*
U.S. Nonresident	*	*	*
Two or more races	*	*	*
Unknown race and ethnicity	*	*	*
White	60%	15%	75%
Gender
Female	33%	33%	67%
Male	57%	14%	70%
Financial Aid
Pell Grant Recipient	41%	19%	59%
Received neither Pell nor Subsidized Stafford Loans	*	*	*
Received Subsidized Stafford Loans, but no Pell	*	*	*

* Suppressed to protect student privacy.

Due to rounding, percentages may not always appear to add up.