Student Success

Student Success at SMC

For a glossary of terms used on this page, see the Student Success Glossary.

Course success of SMC students is consistently in the top quartile (25%) of all public two-year colleges nationwide. Chart depicting SMC's success rate, which was 80% for the Fall 2019 cohort.

Source: NCCBP Form 7 (Enrollee Success Rate)

SMC is proud of the diverse mix of students served by the college.

A data chart showing the racial makeup of SMC students

Source: IPEDS Fall Enrollment & US Census (2010), American Fact Finder

SMC student persistence across academic terms is in the top 10% of all public two-year colleges nationwide.

Chart depicting SMC's student persistence rate, which was 76% for next-term enrollment and 50% for fall-to-fall

Source: NCCBP Executive Report, 2019

SMC has demonstrated consistent improvement and continues to exceed the national average in all eight measures of student satisfaction.

A chart depicting student satisfaction

Note: In a normal distribution, the 75th percentile is .6745 standard deviations above the mean.

Chart depicting students' satisfaction with SMC

Source: Winter 2012, Spring 2015, Spring 2017 and Spring 2019 Ruffalo Noel Levitz Student Satisfaction Surveys

SMC's graduation rate is consistently above the state average.

Chart depicting graduation rates for full time, first time students at SMC, Michigan 2-year schools and national 2-year schools. SMCs graduation rate is consistently higher than the Michigan average.

SMC's graduation + transfer rate is consistently above the state and national average.

Chart showing the 150 percent graduation and transfer rate for full time, first time students at SMC, Michigan 2-year schools and public 2-year schools. SMCs rate has been consistently higher than the state and national average.

SMC has awarded over 6,000 degrees since 2000.

Graph depicting the number of degrees awarded at SMC since 2001. The target is 350-400. It peaked at 397 in 2015-16. Preliminary estimates for 2019-20 is 297.