4-year colleges graduate 53% in 6 years

[bicker]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-06-03-diploma-graduation-rate_N.htm?csp=34

What an incredibly clueless article! The reporter writes as if a university is just another kind of high school.

The fundamental aspect of a university degree is that it proves that you have learned how to teach yourself. It doesn't signify that the university has spoon-fed you adequately for you to have passed tests, but rather that you have proven yourself a scholar, someone who, when surrounded by the resources that contain the information and insights you need, is skilled at determining what you need to learn, skilled at determining how to acquire that information and insights, skilled at integrating such input from different sources, and skilled at building new information and insights from basic principles.

It seems that many students go into university expecting to share the responsibility for their education with people who's primary responsibility is to ensure that they learn the material they need to know. That is not a university. At a university, the primary responsibility of the professors and assistants are their own research, their own pursuit of new insights. The university is like a community garden for ideas and knowledge: You can learn how to grow things by asking the elder gardeners for tips, but you shouldn't think that their concern will be for your patch of the garden; rather it is for their own. In their role as the elder, they model proper gardening techniques for you, and that helps you along by providing insights into how that aspects of gardening actually fit together, but you must do the vast majority of the work, reading up on those techniques and the bases of those aspects.

I think, sometimes, folks lose sight of the difference between "college" and "university". I think, way too often, society itself blurs the line, and indeed, universities do a disservice by re-using the word "college" to label divisions of the university. "College" and "university" are not two words for the same thing! Typically, when we have two words for the same thing, it is because the two words came from two different source languages. Both "college" and "university" came from Latin, both via Anglo-French and Middle English. Two words are needed because the scope and purpose of different institutions of higher education differ.

While "colleges" (when the word is properly used) are about people being taught by teachers, "universities" (when the word is properly used) are about people teaching themselves. This essential dichotomy produces two very different kinds of graduates, each approach having its respective benefits.

The article fails to recognize this dichotomy, implicitly placing the expectations appropriate to a "college" onto all institutions of higher learning. It is reflective of a "dumbing down" of American post-secondary education. Percentage of enrollees who graduate is an appropriate metric for "colleges". For "universities", the appropriate metric is what percentage of graduates contribute to society by expanding the scope and impact of their chosen intellectual discipline.

 

[Green Tea]

I didn't read the article, and actually didn't read the OP-it seemed a little intense. But it is a good reminder in this time of college selection to keep the thought in mind when looking at colleges to inquire about the 4 year graduation rate. Smaller privates are typically much better and getting you out in 4 years; it is a lot easier to get the needed classes.

 

[DawnCt1]

I didn't read the article, and actually didn't read the OP-it seemed a little intense. But it is a good reminder in this time of college selection to keep the thought in mind when looking at colleges to inquire about the 4 year graduation rate. Smaller privates are typically much better and getting you out in 4 years; it is a lot easier to get the needed classes.

That is definitely true. DS#2 spent an extra semester, actually a summer session, getting classes that he could not get during the year. He needed 130 credits to graduate in his major. He graduated with 144 due to poor guidance; "No you don't need Spanish/Yes you do", etc.

 

[freckles and boo]

I appreciate your idealized understanding of the differenence between "college" and "university" and I agree that too many students head off to higher education needing to have their hands held. However, if the master gardeners can't be bothered to share their knowledge and forget who is paying for them to be in the garden all day then the system is flawed. In fact, graduation rates reflect more than just what a student brings to the process. It can often reflect very poor curriculum planning on the part of the school.

 

[bicker]

It could, but in my experience, you don't hear those who fail to graduate saying that they tried really hard to learn, that they went to office hours all the time, that they read all they were supposed to read, when they were supposed to read it, that they got together study groups to discuss what they read, etc., all the things that university students should be doing to excel. Generally, they talk about the material being too hard, or there being too much work (read: they didn't want to reallocate time away from leisure to more study; or they had so many other obligations that they could not do so).

I was a university instructor back in the 1980s. I know things have changed since then, but actually this phenomenon goes back well before that time. I cannot tell you how many of my office hours I sat in my office grading papers, not seeing a single student. The assistance is there, both from the faculty and through students working with each other through study groups, but many students simply are not motivated to capitalize on those resources, or have so many other burdens placed on them from outside of their educational experience that they simply cannot.

 

[Spoodleink]

A A university is an institution of higher learning that awards both undergraduate and post graduate degrees
A college is an institution of higher learning that awards undergraduate degrees.

The college I attended did offer about three graduate degrees (MBS, OT and PT) but no real postgraduate schools.

Your also wrong about colleges as part of a university , a college in that sense is a group of colleagues so it makes sense to have a college of engineering , college of business ect.

 

[bicker]

Actually you've proven my point.

 

[Abbie]

Seems there are some differences of opinion on what constitutes a "college" and what is a "university". I can tell you from the last couple of years, most of the "colleges" in Maryland have gone on to become "universities" even though literally nothing about their curricula or programs had changed. I believe it had something to do with funding but I don't really recall the reasoning. My oldest DD attended a small private college that awards postgraduate degrees yet remains proudly a college, not a university. Middle DD attends another small private school that just changed over from a college to a university; in that case, I think it had more to do with reflecting the increasing size.

 

[sbell111]

Methinks that the OP missed the entire point of that article.

Good rant though.

 

[LuvOrlando]

If an educators primary responsibility is first to him or herself then what exactly is it the kid is paying for?

My favorite quote in the world comes from Good Will Hunting about the Library Card. Do a search on youtube for "Good Will Hunting Bar Scene" and you'll get where I'm coming from... love it!

I suspect finances have a great deal to do with graduation rates. A school with a high number of financial aid students is also likely to have a high number of kids who are trying to juggle paying for rent & books while attempting a 20 credit course load. I do not think it is fair to expect the same outcome from this sort of student as one would from a discriminating institution such as Harvard. In this instance, I believe ability is less relevant than socioeconomic standing. After all, who could argue there isn't a difference between studying with a full belly in an air conditioned dorm room at 4pm and studying at 3am after getting off a late shift for minimum wage as a bartender when your big meal for the day was the Cup-o-noodle soup you bought at Duane Reade for 50 cents? To me the disparity in the outcome isn't exactly a surprise.

 

[smartestnumber5]

I don't really see the distinction between college and university you are getting at given my experiences in higher ed (at least within my humanities field). I attended a selective private liberal arts college for my bachelors (this college offered no degrees above BA/BS). I now am attending a top ranked R1 research university for my PhD and I teach undergraduate courses in my discipline both at that research university and at a nearby regional university. And I will be looking for an academic job--I hope at a selective liberal arts school like the one I attended--this upcoming year.

It is true that top research universities put more emphasis on research than top liberal arts (4 year degree only) granting colleges. It is not true that "universities" in general care more about research than all 4 year degree colleges. If you look at the tenure requirements and the teaching loads for faculty at different sorts of higher ed institutions there are vast differences not between "colleges" and "universities," but between institutions with different missions regardless of the type of degrees they offer. Research universities--especially R1s--do put a great premium on research when it comes to tenure and teaching is often held to a minimum, typically 2 courses a semester (many of them graduate level courses). This is not similarly true of unselective regional universities; faculty at these sorts of schools simply cannot produce nearly the same amount of research because they teach 4-5 courses per semester. Selective liberal arts colleges typically fall between research universities and regional universities in terms of emphasis put on research (some articles/books required for tenure with prestigious journals/publishers, but not as many as in the case of an R1 university) and amount of teaching (2-3 courses per year) required of faculty members.

The idea of a university being a place for students to teach themselves has not held true in any way in my experience at an R1 (unless you are referring to graduate students). Introductory and intermediate courses in my discipline and throughout the college of arts and sciences (my R1 university has its own "college of literature, arts, and sciences" within the university along with a college of engineering, medical school, school of engineering, etc.; I'm not sure how that fact fits in with the distinction you are trying to draw) are taught in a variety of ways. Some are 200+ person lectures taught by a famous professor which are then broken down into small groups for discussion sections with graduate students. The very reason for these discussion sections is that undergraduate students cannot be expected to "teach themselves" or to do well in a 200+ student course with no actual contact with an instructor. (It is of course true that students are expected to learn to think from themselves. But that is equally a goal at all institutions of higher learning regardless of whether they are a college or university or what sort of degrees they offer.) In my department the professors are also required to teach at least one discussion section for each lecture course in the same manner that the graduate students do; their research is not so important that they can refuse to teach students. Other intro and intermediate courses are taught in small classrooms--20 to 25 students--either by faculty or by advanced grad students. These types of classes are virtually indistinguishable from the type of course a student at a selective liberal arts college would experience; there is no difference in the attitude toward "teaching oneself" and "being taught by an instructor"--both of these things have happened in every course I have taken or taught at both my colleges and my university.

The major difference in the attitude toward teaching in different sorts of institutions is how much teaching a faculty member is expected to and thus what percentage of their time they are expected to dedicate to teaching. Since R1 faculty in my field only teach 2 classes per semester, they have time to do significant research and to be intimately involved in the advising and mentoring of graduate students on a day to day or week to week basis. This does not mean that undergraduate teaching/mentoring/thesis advising is not seen as important or that what one does in a classroom full of undergrads is different than what a colleague at a liberal arts college or regional university might do.

It sounds like you are suggesting that at universities students are expected to be more responsible for their own education and to learn more on their own. If so, I would say that you have things backwards. In my own experience (and in the experience of some of the R1 faculty I know), it is at selective liberal arts colleges where funding is plentiful and there are no graduate students to overshadow them that undergraduates are given the most opportunities to really take charge of their own intellectual development. There was more freedom, for instance, to make one's own major at my undergraduate college, there were many, many fewer GenEd requirements, and there was greater opportunity to get involved with the research of faculty members. In my experience at my research university there is more coddling of students than I saw at my 4 year college; this is because at my university for the first year or two of doing gen ed requirements, undergrads deal primarily with graduate students who can tend to be close in age to the undergrads. In what I have seen, undergrads absolutely will say things to graduate students or ask their graduate student teachers for things that they would never say/ask for from actual professors; being a professor brings a level of respect that being a graduate student doesn't and so I think it is a very different experience being taught by a TA then being taught by a PhD holding professor.

In terms of the article, I'm not sure what was problematic about it. Of course it matters what % of students graduate from their institutions of higher ed, no matter what sort of institutions they are. If there is any important distinction to make when considering graduation rates and what to do about them, it is the distinction between prestigious/selective schools (whether universities or colleges have very high rates of graduate in the mid 90s and above) and less prestigious/selective schools which have much lower rates.

Surely that is not the *only* thing that matters for all schools. But neither is it true that all universities should be judged by the impact their students have on through their disciplines. Not all universities are training students to do make such impacts. Many regional universities have a mission of providing bachelors level education at an affordable price to students in the region; if these schools were judged only on research (or on the contributions of their graduates to their disciplines), they would fail dismally. Their faculty simply do not have much time for world class research because they are so busy teaching. Their graduate programs often do not offer PhDs or medical or law degrees; the graduate programs which do exist at these schools--while fine programs--are often not competitive enough to launch their graduates to careers or further graduate studies at top institutions where faculty are given the resources and time needed to conduct world class research.

On the other hand, plenty of colleges do have a mission of preparing their undergrads for further education at top graduate and professional schools. In fact the top liberal arts colleges are known for sending students on to med school, law school, and PhD programs at higher proportions than many R1 schools send their undergrads. This is a huge selling point for these types of selective colleges.

So I don't think the mere name "college" and "university" tells us anything about what a school's mission is or how its success should be judged. This classification system is one which is used by my university's center for research on teaching and learning that gives a much more complicated and more representative picture of the diversity of higher education institutions.

 

[minkydog]

I guess I'd have to know why only 53% are finishing in 4 years. Certainly a lot of kids aren't prepared academically to be in college or university when they graduate HS. That situation is not just applicable to this generation. I saw plenty of kids go to college with me who drove daddy's car and spent daddy's money, skipped morning classes and partied with the Greeks until dawn. And they were surprised when they didn't pass!

But what about those kids who go to college/university and give it all they've got? I went to a university and I finished EASILY in under 4 years. In fact, I finished my first degree in 3 years (nursing) and my second degree in two more years (Elementary ed.) My husband did it too--he has a degree in psychology and education. My sister did too--she has a degree in music performance and elementary ed. And geology! And none of us were egg-heads who had no social life. We were in the band, in choras, in sorority/fraternity, student government, et al. But we knew where to draw the line.

I think the difference is this: we had to pay our own way. We had great motivation to find scholarships, grants, work-study, weekend and summer jobs. We ate cheap and didn't drive much. I skipped some concerts to study for anatomy exams. We skipped going out on some weekends and hanging out with friends during the week. In other words, we were dedicated to finishing our degrees in the shortest time possible to minimize the financial impact on ourselves.

If I had a child who was not putting down at least 30 hours a year, I'd want to know why.

 

[TCPluto]

http://www.usatoday.com/news/education/2009-06-03-diploma-graduation-rate_N.htm?csp=34

What an incredibly clueless article! The reporter writes as if a university is just another kind of high school.

The fundamental aspect of a university degree is that it proves that you have learned how to teach yourself. It doesn't signify that the university has spoon-fed you adequately for you to have passed tests, but rather that you have proven yourself a scholar, someone who, when surrounded by the resources that contain the information and insights you need, is skilled at determining what you need to learn, skilled at determining how to acquire that information and insights, skilled at integrating such input from different sources, and skilled at building new information and insights from basic principles.

It seems that many students go into university expecting to share the responsibility for their education with people who's primary responsibility is to ensure that they learn the material they need to know. That is not a university. At a university, the primary responsibility of the professors and assistants are their own research, their own pursuit of new insights. The university is like a community garden for ideas and knowledge: You can learn how to grow things by asking the elder gardeners for tips, but you shouldn't think that their concern will be for your patch of the garden; rather it is for their own. In their role as the elder, they model proper gardening techniques for you, and that helps you along by providing insights into how that aspects of gardening actually fit together, but you must do the vast majority of the work, reading up on those techniques and the bases of those aspects.

I think, sometimes, folks lose sight of the difference between "college" and "university". I think, way too often, society itself blurs the line, and indeed, universities do a disservice by re-using the word "college" to label divisions of the university. "College" and "university" are not two words for the same thing! Typically, when we have two words for the same thing, it is because the two words came from two different source languages. Both "college" and "university" came from Latin, both via Anglo-French and Middle English. Two words are needed because the scope and purpose of different institutions of higher education differ.

While "colleges" (when the word is properly used) are about people being taught by teachers, "universities" (when the word is properly used) are about people teaching themselves. This essential dichotomy produces two very different kinds of graduates, each approach having its respective benefits.

The article fails to recognize this dichotomy, implicitly placing the expectations appropriate to a "college" onto all institutions of higher learning. It is reflective of a "dumbing down" of American post-secondary education. Percentage of enrollees who graduate is an appropriate metric for "colleges". For "universities", the appropriate metric is what percentage of graduates contribute to society by expanding the scope and impact of their chosen intellectual discipline.

What I would like to see is the skill to communicate clearly.

As well, your major point has nothing to do with the article cited. So, other than going on a rant, was there a point?

I'll be sure to let the university I attended know they have it all wrong....

 

[bicker]

You're welcome to your opinions. The reality is what I described. And the article we're discussing shows the impact of people wrongly believing as some of you believe.

Continue thinking of universities as "13th through 16th grades" and you'll continue to see graduation rates decline.

 

[TCPluto]

You're welcome to your opinions. The reality is what I described. And the article we're discussing shows the impact of people wrongly believing as some of you believe.
Continue thinking of universities as "13th through 16th grades" and you'll continue to see graduation rates decline.

Sounds incredibly pompous. But then again, I have one of those university degrees from an institution that's doin' it wrong...

 

[bicker]

Sounds incredibly pompous. But then again, I have one of those university degrees from an institution that's doin' it wrong...

That sounds rather defensive.

 

[bluesaturn]

If an educators primary responsibility is first to him or herself then what exactly is it the kid is paying for?

A piece of paper with his name on it in pretty writing. And the ability to use the exercise facilities.

 

[smartestnumber5]

You're welcome to your opinions. The reality is what I described. And the article we're discussing shows the impact of people wrongly believing as some of you believe.

Continue thinking of universities as "13th through 16th grades" and you'll continue to see graduation rates decline.

The reality is what? The article shows the impact of wrongly believing what?

The article says some schools have very low graduation rates and other schools have very high graduation rates. This is true whether the schools are universities or colleges. More selective schools tend to have higher graduation rates, even at the lower end as shown by the comparison between Amherst and Reed Colleges (still over 70%) and less selective schools tend to have lower graduation rates even at the higher end as shown by the comparison Walla Wall and Heritage University. If community colleges were included, my guess is that their rates of graduation would likely be on the lower end.

I can't see what connection you are getting from any of this about what the goals of colleges/universities are or should be or what type of education students receive at colleges/universities. What the words "college" and "university" mean in Latin has nothing to do with what the missions of colleges and universities today actually are or by what standards they judge their own success.

I'm not sure what you mean by saying that universities should not be 13th-16th grade (if this is a bad thing, shouldn't it also be the case that colleges shouldn't either?). My guess is we would all agree that we should not be dumbing down curricula and that students should be taking on progressively more independent work as they move through their 4 year degree, which is why both selective colleges and universities encourage independent studies, self-designed majors, thesis work, etc. This is a far cry from the suggestion that students at universities teach themselves (as opposed to students at colleges who are taught by a teacher).

My favorite quote in the world comes from Good Will Hunting about the Library Card. Do a search on youtube for "Good Will Hunting Bar Scene" and you'll get where I'm coming from... love it!

I suspect finances have a great deal to do with graduation rates. A school with a high number of financial aid students is also likely to have a high number of kids who are trying to juggle paying for rent & books while attempting a 20 credit course load.

I love that scene in Good Will Hunting too. Though I do think it's misrepresentative of what the point of higher education is and what should be going on in a decent institution of higher ed. I don't think you can substitute working through issues in a classroom, discussing a reading with an adviser, getting comments from a colleague or professor on an article with doing a ton of reading by oneself. (Of course, Will was supposed to be a genius so he's supposed to be smarter than any actually academics, so maybe that sort of thing could work for him.)

I agree that finances probably have a lot to do with it. But I think it's not merely how many students need financial aid, but also how good the financial aid the college is offering is. I think some of the Ivies now offer a completely free ride to students whose families make under $60,000 a year. That surely is going to help students who otherwise might be struggling financial--in fact, with room and board paid for it's probably cheaper for the student's family if the student is at school than if the student lived at home and ate mom and dad's food!

Also I think that the selectiveness of the school likely plays some role. People who are able to gain admission to top schools are generally people who have habits of working extremely hard in order to have excelled enough to be competitive for top schools. At schools that are less competitive there is more of a mix of students; some are the kind who have always had a great work ethic and others may be used to doing a little more skating by. My brother was more of a skate by type in high school and because of this he was not able to get admitted to a very selective school. He could easily excel and get an A+ if he wanted to (if he really liked a class or a teacher), but he could also easily end up with an F in a course he didn't enjoy in the same semester. As you'd expect, it took him longer than the 4 years his program actually lasted to graduate because he was still using the skate by method at his university.

I'm sure there are other interesting variables as well. Since I'm interested in liberal arts college I'd personally like to know more about why Reed and Amherst have such different rates.

 

[DISUNC]

bicker typed "dichotomy"

 

[MrsPete]

Just some observations on what I see at the high school where I teach:

MOST of our students go on to college these days. They go on to college even if they aren't good students, even if they don't read, even if they don't care about furthering their education, even if they don't particularly have good study habits, even if they don't know what they want to do with their lives. It's just what kids are expected to do these days. It's a bad thing.

Parents often figure that if the child can GET INTO COLLEGE, he's going to be successful. Not true. Many universities -- I'm not talking about the big-name, competative schools here -- accept border-line kids, knowing that some of them will "step up to the plate" and others will just disappear after Christmas. Also, in my state we have a few small, private colleges that have reputations as havens for kids who didn't apply themselves in high school -- but who come from families with money. If they can afford to pay (or borrow) $30,000/year, they can go to college!

Many of these students stay only a semester or a year, then they drop out -- and, of course, that would raise the number for this particular article. Most of these students would've been better off choosing job training, the military, waiting a couple years, or some other option. They either aren't college material, or they just weren't motivated /ready.