Four-Year Graduation Rates Lag, But Do They Matter?
Only two of the state’s 38 public four-year universities can graduate half of their students within four years — and even then, just barely. At the University of Texas at Austin, the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board reports, 53 percent of incoming freshmen graduate in four years. Texas A&M University graduates 51 percent.
On the other end of the spectrum, rates are staggeringly low: Texas Southern University and the University of Houston-Downtown only graduate 3 percent of their students in four years, according to the same figures. The University of Texas at El Paso graduates 10 of every ...
Comments (7)
T D
Many students take longer to graduate because they are working (some of them at two jobs) in order to put themselves through school.
They are doing so in large part because tuition has increased.
Tuition has increased because of low-taxers like Hammond, who now want a better "return on their investment," and whose actions will lead to students taking on more debt.
Which means working more to pay off the debt.
Critics like Hammond won't be happy until college looks like high school, and the business community gets to charge everyone for providing mandatory tests.
Carolyn Moon via Texas Tribune on Facebook
The piece of paper isn't nearly as important as the education that occurs at the schools.
Cheryl El-Sabagh via Texas Tribune on Facebook
The way of Texas - the way of the U.S. - lower standards of education all around.
Proud Texan
Good ol' Bill Hammond. Hit every nail with a 5-pound hammer. TD is right. Some students don't come from the suburbs where mommy and daddy are paying all of their bills and sending them off to college in a new BMW they got for a high school graduation present. Some have to quit school due to a myriad of life issues. We need to give Mr. Hammond a new nickname....."Bubble boy". I don't know what version of reality he's living in, but it isn't the same reality for millions of Texans.
David Huang via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Graduation rates are a feel-good statistic.
Teresa Kasten Wright via Texas Tribune on Facebook
A disservice to our young people and our state...the current state funding model is solely focused on — and rewards increases in — enrollment.
Texas public universities with strong marketing and recruitment investment can bring up enrollment, which is necessary for them to get funding under the current formula. The state is saying "recruit any high school graduate, not those prepared to be successful or those who need 4 year degrees."
Many more Texas students can be successful educationally and financially if we provide them with strong trade skills/training or associates degrees. Tarrant County College, for one, has stepped up to the plate to work with students, the community and business to do this. Perhaps the state needs to raise standards for admission at our 4-year universities so we have engineers, scientists, teachers, etc, but ALSO work with our community colleges to also meet the needs of these other students.
Dormand Long
While those in academia take delight whenever they can quantify a measure, there is a pronounced tendency to adopt it as a metric, regardless of its validity, reliability, or presence of any scientific proof.
Those organizations which are in dire need of competent new hires to sustain their competitiveness are seeking competence, not degrees.
One of the best analyses of this topic is the linked "The College Payoff Illusion" by the Director of Research at The Hudson Institute, Edwin Rubinstein.
http://rs.hudson.org/index.cfm?fuseaction=publication_details&id=2147
One factor ignored by those who limit their college search to Texas institutions due to the lower in-state tuition is the very substantial expense for room and board, which is not significantly different per year among colleges, except those in high cost cities. In addition, at most Texas colleges, a car is a virtual necessity, thus entailing a litany of expenses not burdening those at small liberal arts colleges, which tend to have robust campus life.
There is a much higher propensity for small liberal arts college students to both a ) get far larger financial aid grants, and b ) to graduate in four years, bonding with their same fellow classmates all four years.
When two otherwise equal applicants seek one lucrative graduate/professional school slot or a dream job opening, the applicant who finished the undergraduate degree in four years will almost always get the nod over the applicant who took six to seven years to complete college.
In any case, going to a good school is an expensive initiative. If a student has to continue to pay for room and board, as well as car upkeep for two to three years after his/her peers who went the small private liberal arts college route and graduated in four years and thus have been drawing college graduate paychecks, the attraction of low in-state tuition may seem illusory.
Ignoring the cost, the key issue is the value of the education. If one holds a degree from a well respected small liberal arts college where class sizes rarely exceed fifty, the lifetime career potential might well far exceed a peer who attended college in which class sizes of 1,200 were common.
One key variable is the emphasis on writing papers. If a college relies on Scantron tests to judge its students, the quality of the learning will pale as compared to a college in which many papers are required to demonstrate mastery of the subject.
As for later gaining entry into a highly selective professional or graduate school, whose professor will best recall that student requesting a professor's recommendation, the one with 50 students or the one with 1,200 students?
One key differential in time required to earn a degree is the challenge of getting into prerequisite courses. This challenge is a root cause of college taking far longer than four years. If required prerequisites are only offered once per year, and if required courses must be taken in sequential order, that student might as well take a very long term lease.
If one seeks to earn a solid education, there are quality guidelines:
a ) the Fiske Guide to Colleges is a superb qualitative reference, based upon actual interviews with students at the colleges profiled. It is a valid guide to campus culture and the quality of the school.
b ) Colleges that can Change Lives offers guidance to schools that distain common rankings and seek to attract students which are a good fit for their campus culture.
c ) Rankings of new student orientation programs are exceptionally valuable. It is a huge leap to go from the warm lap of supportive parents out into a college which might have a cut-throat culture or might have a mutually supportive teamwork culture.
d ) As many secondary schools fail to teach students to write papers, those colleges which have a writing support program are golden. If one gets a degree, but fails to learn to write effectively and persuasively, a low ceiling on future prospects may be likely.
e ) Those who give one iota of weight to the US News and World Report ranking of colleges will probably regret their decision. This is the most over-rated guide to colleges in existence, yet it has college administrations going to great lengths to skew their statistics.
Happy hunting in this search, which is probably the most important decision that a person can make, after that of chosing a mate for life.