Tennessee Score Card

Tennessee, the 17th most populous state, ranks low in educational attainment. It has the sixth highest percentage of adults with only an eighth grade education or less, eighth highest percentage of adults with some high school but no diploma, and fourth lowest percentage of adults with an associate degree. Tennessee is expected to have a 1 percent decline in high school graduates from 2007–08 to 2017–18.

Tennessee's higher education accountability system's strengths are:

• Gathering information on a wide breadth of performance measures.
• Collecting and reporting data in a timely fashion.
• Separating data by important socioeconomic factors (race/ethnicity, gender, income, first-generation status, transfer students, etc.).
• Aligning state priorities with concrete goals for achievement.
• Formally linking budgetary decisions to the performance of state postsecondary institutions.

Tennessee's higher education accountability system needs work in:

• Comparing data across time and/or against peers.