We tend to think of college as four discrete years--freshman, sophomore, junior, and senior--when the truth is far from it. But our national four-year graduation rate, as of yesterday, stands at only 36 percent. The six-year rate climbs to 57, but this means a full 43 percent of students entering a four-year institution as full-time students are either still in school 6+ years after entering, or they have dropped out. It is time to end the notion that "four-year institutions" actually graduate their students in four years and time to think of alternative definitions of college success.
The federal government requires all so-called four-year institutions to report one-year retention rates and four-, five-, and six-year graduation rates for all first-time, full-time students. Six-year rates are separated for race/ ethnicity and gender. It doesn't require the data to be broken down by income or for part-time students. Nor does it count transfer students.President Obama wavers between pushing on access and pushing on completion. It's not an either/ or decision necessarily, but the Georgia example shows that completion is the harder to achieve and easier to forget. His big education speech yesterday focused on access and affordability, but his policies have wisely pushed on completions too. And he's addressed pitiful graduation rates in prior speeches.
Some states are already looking at completions data more comprehensively. The University System of Georgia (USG) has a publicly available data warehouse where users can look at one, two, three, four, five, and six-year retention rates, and graduation rates for four through fifteen years, for all public "four-year" institutions. These can be sorted by gender, race/ ethnicity, and whether the student entered as full- or part-time. They aren't even limited to the same institution: the data gives credit if a student graduates at another USG institution.
The following is not to be taken as a knock against Georgia--rather, they should be applauded for making the data available--but the numbers are not pretty. They show the four year standard is no more than a cruel joke. After four years, only three out of 20 institutions have more graduates than dropouts. Never mind the four-year graduation rate: of students that entered a Georgia "four-year institution" full-time in 1992, eight out of 18 institutions had 15-year, system-wide graduation rates under 40 percent. Only four saw more than half their students graduate. These numbers are worse for minorities, part-time students, and low-income students.
We would be wise to learn from Georgia and stop pretending the four year standard exists for most students. Stop collecting static percentages and instead collect raw numbers for if and when students graduate. Calculate a total graduation rate, calculated by dividing all entrants by all graduates regardless of time. Cap it at 15 years, or something insanely high, to give institutions and students the understanding that partial credit (those students self-identifying as "some college, no degree") does not count for much in the workforce. This would give institutions credit for the slow trickle of graduates, and it would paint a more accurate picture than snapshots taken at four, five, and six years. Instead of holding onto cherished notions of four years of college, total graduation rate would give students an honest assessment of their likelihood to finish. Then, use the raw data on student graduations to calculate time-to-degree for every college in America. Of the students that finish, how long does it take them?
We'd be removing the notion that students should graduate in four years (even though most don't already). This could lead to students taking longer than they do now, but colleges and universities have an incentive to get students out as quickly as possible. Students enrolled in low-level courses consume fewer resources, because their classes are larger and the professors are typically lower paid. A strong focus on time-to-degree would strengthen this incentive. It would also re-frame the notion of college. Instead of the dirty secret that college is supposed to take four years but actually takes six, institutions would have to begin competing on lowering this rate, and we wouldn't have this slow backslide into six being the new four. These two rates would focus on precisely what students want to know: what are my chances of finishing? and how long will it realistically take me if I do?
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3 comments:
As an institutional researcher, this would create an enormous headache for my people, but the real issue here, I think, is the singleminded focus on the "first time full time" students when it comes to retention research. We don't have a good way to measure part timers, transfers, or re-admits, but if we really want to look at how most students go to school today, we'd need to. What if students were required to make a degree plan, and the school's grad rates were tied to that? Tons of incentive-related issues, I know, but there has to be a way to measure the "non-trad" mode that is emerging. (Spake the institutional researcher from her cozy seat at a school where 85+% do graduate in 4 years.)
As a father of two in college who will graduate in 4 years - I am always puzzled by these statistics. We need to really understand is this a lack of preparation for college rigor issue, lack of maturity in handling college, lack of focus (ie many majors) or a college issue. As always I suspect it is all of the above.
If we want to make college affordable, cutting 1/3 of the living expenses from the equation would certainly help
There are several (somewhat complicated) ways to convert a snapshot into a hypothetical cohort -- and it happens every year with the calculation of life expectancy at birth, which is based on a hypothetical cohort rather than being a prediction of how long that year's babies are going to live.
On the other hand, it's more complicated for education for a few reasons, and doing it for every school is even harder.
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