The College Degrees and Certificates Awarded report shows the count of undergraduate and graduate certificates and degrees granted from Michigan colleges and universities in a given school year (July 1 – June 30). The report further breaks these metrics out by certificate and degree level, the program in which students obtained a degree, race/ethnicity and gender.

The data help us evaluate degree completion at Michigan’s colleges and universities while specifically highlighting where institutions; program strengths are. The report can aid with advising and counseling students for direction regarding college and program choice in relation to similar student demographics.

Download the data file and find more detailed program counts and special population data such as students with disabilities and economically disadvantaged for community college completers.

While using the certificate and degree data, it is important to keep in mind that this report includes colleges and universities with different enrollment sizes. To add context, reference the College Undergraduate Enrollment report, especially when comparing between institutions.

To explore the College Degrees and Certificates Awarded report, use filters to answer questions like:

How many undergraduate certificates were granted at Michigan’s community colleges? Universities?

What are the top 10 programs that Michigan students earned degrees and certificates in?

How many bachelor’s degrees did Michigan State University grant in a single school year?

To calculate College Degrees and Certificates Awarded, the report first looks for postsecondary awards earned during a fiscal school year (July 1 – June 30) using the submitted award date in the Student Transcript Academic Record Repository. A unique award is defined by its award name, award level, date and an academic program.

Beginning with the 2018-19 school year, Michigan’s independent colleges and universities are required to submit data to CEPI. Some independent institutions also submitted data for the 2017-18 school year; however, data are only included in the statewide aggregations in the downloadable data file (where the Public/Independent column = Public and Independent), not in the report visual. Although independent colleges are required to submit data as of the 2018-19 school year, they are only legislatively required to submit data related to students who are TIP and PELL grant recipients. Optionally, they may also submit complete enrollment and award data to CEPI. Colleges that opt to submit complete data are included in all of CEPI’s postsecondary reporting, not just the legislatively required reports. Please see the technical notes for additional information about reporting inclusion and data aggregations for independent colleges and universities.

In Michigan, colleges and universities uniquely label their academic programs to describe their custom curriculums. For consistency, the report uses the program labels from the federal Classification of Instructional Programs. Therefore, the program category or field of study labels will likely be different than the school’s label. For example, the CIP says that 11.0201 represents Computer Programming but at various Michigan colleges, 11.0201 is called Software Development, Software Engineering and Computer Information Systems. In the downloadable data file, programs at Perkins-funded community colleges and universities are categorized even further as “occupational”, meaning that these are programs that have a direct career relationship. All other programs are categorized as “non-occupational.”

Also note that, awards are uniquely counted at various aggregation levels. For example, say a student earned a bachelor’s degree in accounting (52.0301) and a bachelor’s degree in small business administration (52.0703) on May 1 from a university. These two unique degrees will be counted as two degrees when counting at the 6-digit CIP code level but would only be counted as one degree if counted as the 2-digit CIP code level (52). The downloadable report provides up to the six digit CIP code data, whereas the dashboard visual report only provides 2-digit (Program Category) and 4-digit (Detailed Programs) CIP code level data.

CEPI inherited the creation of this legislatively mandated report from the Talent Investment Agency, which formerly collected aggregate award data from Michigan’s community colleges. Data prior to 2017-18 can be found on the Michigan Community College NETwork’s website.

Report Labels

College Type: Distinguishes whether a college or university primarily provides two -year or four-year degrees (some independent colleges and universities are included only in aggregate data).

Public/Independent: An indicator as to whether a college is publicly or privately controlled.

Program Category: The 2-digit CIP level of the academic field of study or discipline represented by the classification of programs.

Detailed Programs: The 4-digit CIP level of the academic field of study or discipline represented by the classification of programs.

Award Category: The description of the level of academic achievement represented by the degree or certificate. Review the STARR data manual for a complete list of enumerations.

Undergraduate Certificate: Includes professional or technical credentials, and postsecondary awards, certificates, or diplomas of less than two academic years.

Associate Degree: Includes associate degrees and postsecondary awards, certificates, or diplomas of at least two, but less than four, academic years.

Graduate Certificate: Includes post-baccalaureate and post-master’s certificates.

Doctoral Degree: Includes research, professional, and other doctoral degrees.

See the Technical Notes and Field Definitions for more report labels listed in the downloadable data file.

Data Collection

The Center for Educational Performance and Information and the Talent Investment Agency collected the data used to complete this report:

• Student Transcript and Academic Record Repository to locate enrollment in a Michigan public community college or university. For details on the data definitions and how the data are collected, refer to the STARR Data Collection Manual.
• The Program Inventory Database contains program information submitted by Michigan community colleges and some universities, including whether a program is occupational in nature.