Understanding Equity Gap Charts on the Community College Pipeline

This brief describes the Equity Gap charts that have been added as part of the 2020-21 build of the Community College Pipeline dashboard. The Equity Gap charts, displaying calculated disproportionate impact (DI) for the age groups, gender and race/ethnicity of students, have been added to the Summary View and Detailed View for access, completion and transfer to a four-year institution. The Equity Gap charts are meant to inspire further investigation and conversations about how to address persistent equity gaps for underrepresented student populations either at the overall level or at the program or TOP code level for colleges, districts or regions. The Proportionality Index (PI) is the methodology used to calculate disproportionate impact or DI for the Community College Pipeline. The proportionality index helps answer the question, “If a subgroup of students represents 40% of the student body, does that same subgroup also represent at least 40% of the students who achieve the desired outcome?” The index or ratio compares the percentage of a subgroup in the student population to the percentage of that same subgroup out of the student population who met the metric outcome. The PI ratio is calculated for unsuppressed non-generated subgroups of the standard disaggregations, including race/ethnicity, gender and age group.