Comments on: Low College Graduation Rates? Blame Low Admissions Standards

By: Mark

Mark — Mon, 08 Mar 2010 23:29:21 +0000

Thanks for the tip, Toni. It’s great that this database is available for subscription, and that colleges were keeping track of their own transfers. Wouldn’t it be nice, however, if these statistics were reported in the Common Data Set and somehow rolled into the stats reported by the government (and thus, by US News & World Report)? Some colleges should be quite happy to report that while students do drop out of their colleges, these same students do go on to successfully complete their degree. However, other colleges would be horrified to admit that their drop outs are just, well, dropping out.

Thanks for visiting!

By: Toni Baggiano

Toni Baggiano — Thu, 04 Mar 2010 15:39:33 +0000

Mark,
There is a national database that educational entities can use to track students..even if they transfer. We use the National Clearinghouse each year and it is an excellent way to follow our 1200 students to see where they are in college at any given time. If a student transfers, it lets us know. The subscription is a little over $400 a year.
Toni

By: Mark

Mark — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 14:55:05 +0000

Hi, Laura. You are correct to snoop behind the statistics. More efforts are being made to measure transfer rates, which are indeed a part of the completion rate picture. The problem is that there is no Federal database that follows students through the higher education system. In fact, until recently, it has been hard in most case to track primary and secondary students as they transfer from one school to the next (or one state to the next). So certainly these stats don’t paint a completely accurate picture.

But consider this: some colleges have have students who transfer both in and out at the same rate. In other words, they have a negligible decline in their cohort of students from freshman year to senior year. Put another way, some schools graduate the same number of students they started with as freshmen–even though a number of them may have transferred.

Thus one interesting statistical game is to look at the number of entering freshmen and compare that to the number of graduating seniors four years later. For some colleges, we would notice a steep decline. And my guess is that the schools on this list would be similar–if not identical–to the colleges whose overall six-year graduation rate is darned low.

Thanks for your comment and question, Laura!

By: Laura Zurowski

Laura Zurowski — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 12:50:20 +0000

Hi Mark,

As a reader, I’m curious to know the story behind these numbers. Questions like, “What’s the transfer rate?” “Are they counting trad ugrad with adult CE students (who may opt for non-matric certificate programs)?” and “What sort of support services are available?” immediately come to mind. I’m not expecting you to know these answers , but whenever I see a college with very poor completion numbers it makes me wonder how they arrive at those numbers and what factors on campus influence them. Thanks for the detailed and lively post -it was an enjoyable read!
Laura Zurowski