Graduation Rates Are Inaccurate!

Graduation Rates Are Inaccurate!

            This last week I was working on one of my final projects for a class and stumbled on something that I could not believe. The topic of my research was that of why Idaho State University’s graduation rates have been so low, and what graduation rates really mean. I, like I assume most of you, believed that a university’s graduation rate was a direct measure of the number of students that succeeded in gaining a degree. Period, end of story. Well, would you believe that a university’s graduation rate is NOT the measure of students who are succeeding in a given year? Guess what else. Based on the current method for calculating graduation rates, President Obama, who began school at Occidental College and finished at Colombia, is considered a drop out.

 That’s right. Our very own Barry O.

            I’ll give you the brief outline of my discoveries, because I believe everyone should know what these statistics really are considering and what they really mean. To start with, lets look at the six year graduation rates for I.S.U. They are shown below:

Eeep! Looks pretty bad right?

                So heres where it gets interesting. The current federal guidelines for calculating graduation rates only figure in first time full time freshmen. Any other type of student does not count towards an institution’s overall graduation rate. What we are talking about here is a term that gets thrown around a lot, but is rarely explained. Non. Traditional. Students. A non-traditional student is any student that falls into one or more of the following categories according to the National Center for Educational Statistics:

·         Delays enrollment (does not enter postsecondary education in the same calendar year that he or she finished high school) 

•       Attends part time for at least part of the academic year

•     Works full time (35 hours or more per week) while enrolled

•      Is considered financially independent for purposes of determining eligibility for financial aid

•      Has dependents other than a spouse (usually children, but sometimes others

•      Is a single parent (either not married or married but separated and has dependents

•       Does not have a high school diploma (completed high school with a GED or other high school completion certificate or did not finish high school).

A traditional student, by comparison, is classified as a first time, full time freshman, usually 18 years old and enrolling directly after high school. Don’t believe me? See for yourself! http://nces.ed.gov/programs/coe/analysis/2002a-sa01.asp

 Older data, but you get the picture.

          

           On top of all this is the fact that any student who transfers into or out of a college before finishing their degree counts against the graduation rate. It’s starting to feel like we’ve traveled to another dimension.  A dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. Where common sense is nonsense and vice versa. 

 No Rod. You can’t use the federal guidelines for calculating a university’s graduation rate as the basis for a new episode of your show.

            The plot thickens! Consider the admission requirements for a prestigious college, say, Harvard and compare them to Idaho State University’s. In 2012 Harvard recorded a 97.2% graduation rate, while I.S.U. recorded a 4 year graduation rate of around 10%.

            Idaho State University admission information:

•   2.5 or better cumulative GPA
  •  Test scores meeting the following criteria:
  • Math score of at least 18 on ACT or 490 on SAT
  • English score of at least 18 on ACT or 460 on SAT Critical Reading

•  Completed an undergraduate application and paid the $40 fee
• Cost of tuition per year for full time students:  $6,070.00

Harvard admission information:

•     Many students with a GPA of 4.0 are not admitted

• Many students with perfect ACT or SAT scores are not admitted.

•  Completed an undergraduate application and paid the $75 fee

•  Cost of tuition per year for full time students:  $40,016.00

 Gnarly indeed.

            So you’ve been presented with all this data, and I’ve been throwing stuff at you for the last several pages. Whats the big idea? Well lets work backwards here. The comparison between Harvard and I.S.U. shows something very clearly. Idaho State is much more willing to give a wider variety of students a chance. Is this due to prestige? Probably. Harvard is an institution that has produced some of the finest minds of our time, but that tuition money is going to someone. They don’t take risks on students and so don’t suffer for it when their graduation results are reported. A student who is forking over 40 grand a year for a college education is damn sure going to have a higher rate of success than someone who is only paying 6. 

See my full report in all it's glory here:  https://docs.google.com/a/isu.edu/file/d/0ByKw4VssrH6BZHRJLU5NakZnZDg/edit?usp=sharing

 WU TANG!

                Consider the definitions of what makes up non-traditional students. How many students sitting around you fall into one or more of these categories? I myself am not a traditional student. All of this information really begins to paint a system of evaluation that is not only unfair and inaccurate, but strongly bias towards the more expensive and more prestigious universities. But shouldn’t the philanthropic act of giving a broad range of students a chance, one that they might not get at other universities, be figured into this equation? I’d say so. So the next time someone quotes a graduation statistic to you in regards to anything other than it being bullshit, tell them whats up.