Even at schools with very low graduation rates, some students do graduate. They discipline themselves and work hard enough to earn the credits they need to graduate. It’s not that those who graduate were the “lucky” ones. Each student is in control of his destiny; either he does what is required, or he doesn’t. We’re not talking about dice here. We’re talking about human beings with free will.
That’s why I find it troubling that the authors repeatedly talk about schools “failing to graduate their students.” Colorado Christian College doesn’t “fail to graduate” 92 percent of the students who enroll there. Rather, only 8 percent do what is required of them to graduate.
Let’s place responsibility where it belongs.
(Note: Colorado Christian College contacted us after the report was published to say that they mis-entered their graduation rate data into the IPEDS system and that it's actually 39 percent.)
So Leef thinks what happens to students in college is solely dependant on what students put into the experience. Unless, of course, when he doesn't think that at all. Here's Leef writing last year at the National Review:
Here is an important article that explains how far France and Germany have gone in proselytizing against capitalism in their schools. They seem to be succeeding where the Soviet Union failed — in creating "the new soviet man." Young Frenchmen and Germans are taught about economics in a way that would make Karl Marx smile.
The indoctrination is worse there than here, but many American students also get a misleading, socialistic version of capitalism and business in their classes. Young Americans would subscribe to most of the ideas popular among the French and Germans — such as that welfare and government employment are rights.
The left has always understood that the way to wreck a society based on individualism and liberty is by reshaping the thinking of the young people. France and Germany are destined to become poorer, more regimented countries. There are lots of professors here who would say, "Right on!"
In other words, colleges have so little influence over the academic lives of their students that a 92 percent drop out rate is perfectly acceptable because degree completion is totally a function of whether students have the gumption and will to succeed. Yet colleges have so much influence over the academic lives of their students that the Marxist professoriate may very well "wreck" our entire society by indoctrinating students who are powerless to resist their professors' devious collectivist spell.
As I've said before, people have a remarkably fluid view of the efficacy of higher education. Leef subscribes to the Charles Murray IQ-determinist view of education and thinks we need to reduce access to college. So it's convenient to argue that colleges with low graduation rates are doing nothing wrong. But he also believes that leftist professors are conspiring to convert our youth to socialism, so it's convenient to blame colleges for the fact that young people tend to support an active role for the government in various aspects of the economy.
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As a colleague of George Leef, I'd like to share a few thoughts. Rest assured, we at the Pope Center have not given up our critique of universities. They do have an enormous impact on their students, for good and for ill.
But I (and George, too) have begun to question the popular reliance on graduation rates as an indicator of a school's quality. They are indicators of something, but no one is quite sure of what, and their significance may be quite different for each school.
George's column was a welcome reminder that students themselves are a critical part of the education process. His message is that we need to attend to student accountability as well as university accountability.
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