I looked at my state and found 4 of my state's "flagship" public colleges had graduation rates between 80-93%.
Keep in mind that with ANYTHING dealing with education, you must ask yourself to look at the whole picture. I'm a teacher, and I constantly see statistics that look wonky to me . . . and when I look a second time, I often see a reason why that statistic isn't really telling the whole truth.
When it comes to graduation rates, two things are improtant to know:
- That rate reports students who graduated in four years. LOTS of students finish school, but they don't do it in four years. I faced severe financial hardship in college (looking back, I'm not even sure how I did it), and I didn't finish in four years, yet I wouldn't see that as a failure. At a state's flagship university, I'd bet the vast majority do graduate -- even if they don't do it in four years.
- Many, many students are heading out to college just because it's the thing to do (though these students probably aren't attending your state's flagship U). Going to school seems to be the path of least resistance. They don't know what they want to study, aren't particularly interested in four more years of school, but everyone seems happy to push them in that direction. It's no surprise that these students can't maintain four years of momentum. If you look at the numbers of students who leave after just one semester (or just one year), the percentage is dismal. BUT if a student makes it through sophomore year, it's unusual for him not to finish school -- even if he doesn't do it in the prescribed four years.
The studies show that
freshmen who live on campus have higher graduation and retention rates than those who don't. Obviously, a lot of kids go from a dorm to off campus apartments at some point during their college careers. The discussion here on these boards has centered on the students starting college and who is responsible to pay. Many posters have said that they plan for their children to live off campus when they begin college or to attend community college for the first two years. Here is a link to one such study:
http://www.iowastatedaily.com/news/article_6e9d3ae8-011a-11e1-b3d5-001cc4c03286.html
For an interesting paper about extremely low graduation rates and community colleges, go here:
http://www.aei.org/files/2012/04/02...ity-college-graduation-rates_173407573640.pdf
I totally agree that -- for the average college freshman -- living on campus makes for the best start. Living in a dorm immerses the student in the educational environment 100% of the time. It's a constant reminder of the commitment that he's going to devote the next four years of his life to his education. It lets them take advantage of all the college's offerings 24/7. Students who are involved in college life tend to enjoy it more, and that certainly helps academically. My daughter is living in a dorm right now, and she's loving it. She's met so many people, and she loves the convenience of being right there on campus. Her environment is definitely helping her succeed.
However, everyone isn't average, so you have to consider whether it's right for your student.
And if living on campus is a financial stretch, you have to consider whether it's possible /worthwhile to make the financial sacrafices to provide that ideal living situation. It's perfectly possible for that average student to succeed in college without living on campus, and when weighed against the possibility of future debt, it's a tough call.
But it also has to do with expectations and the amount of support both available and accessible. Being on campus 24 hours a day means that there are more opportunities to work with tutors, meet up for study groups, and hit the library. When I commuted into school, if study group met Tuesday night and my only Tuesday class was 10-11am, I wasn't driving back in half an hour to go to study group.
Yes, that's the kind of thing I meant when I said in an above post that living on campus immerses the student in his education 24/7. It's easy to take advantages of resources -- like meeting a study group in the dorm lobby, like walking over to the classroom hall to see your professor during his office hours, like being able to stay at the library 'til all hours of the night -- when you're only steps away from those things. It takes more effort when doing those things requires driving back to campus.
And it has to do with the peer group. At a four year school you can find the party crowd, but it isn't hard to find the pre-med/pre-law/engineering crowd. And its easier to find those people when you have the social network of the dorms available. Commute, and you get isolated, those people are harder to find, and can be (in my experience) much more cliquish if many of them live on (or very near) campus. Go to a community college, and they are rare.
Slightly off-topic, but my church is very anti- big state schools. The general feeling is that it's better to send your kids to a small, private Christian school (even if the opportunities are limited and the academics inferior) because they'll avoid the temptations to fall in with the wrong crowd. I, however, have always felt that whatever you're looking for . . . you will find it. If you're at a big state school, you'll see invitations for Bible studies
right next to announcements of keg parties
right next to solicitations for Chemistry majors to join a Thursday night study group. What your student chooses to do is largely a measure of what resources he chooses to focus upon.
I don't mean that you should send your student to LackLuster State or Ghetto University thinking that he'll succeed if he just tries, but within the realm of the good universities, many opportunities will avail themselves.
Students who live on campus are FAR more likely to be white & come from higher socio-economic families. THOSE are the factors that (unfortunately) truly predict graduation rates. It is missing the bigger issues to say that simply living on campus predicts higher grad rates.
That's a very fair point, and I think everyone will agree that a kid from a white, high-earning family with two college-educated parents has a big advantage over the kid from a minority, single-mother Welfare family (having said that, I myself am from a white, single-mother Welfare family myself, so I didn't have that ideal start, yet I am a college graduate . . . twice). And these benefits don't begin in college; rather, kids from families who value education begin instilling those values from birth. Maybe even before birth, as we fill our unborn children's bedrooms with picture books.
The point is that a lot of people live at or, unfortunately, above their financial means. The result is that they "can't" save . . . I tell my oldest daughter all the time that the key to having money is to live under your means.
Of course some families are making all the right financial choices and still don't have enough to live upon, but MOST of us do have some disposable income -- and I agree completely that it's our choices that determine whether we "can" save.
My husband and I earn about the same amount as most of our friends, yet we live in a smaller house, drive our cars longer, spend less on clothing and meals out. The result: When they talk about how worried they are about college money and retirement accounts, we can't join in the conversation. We aren't big wage earners, but we're very conscious of how we spend.
And dorm life isn't just partying.
Yet people who never lived in a dorm themselves tend to think this is the case. My husband is one of those people. He visited friends in the dorms on weekends, when it's true that things were in full swing every Friday and Saturday night -- that's why he came to visit his friends on those days! He never visited Sunday - Thursday nights, when you could see people reading on the floor of every lobby or typing away in the soundproof study rooms. Dorms have two personalities: The weekday personality and the weekend personality.
I'm encouraging my daughter to find a balance between doing everything she needs to be doing academically . . . and also going to dinner with friends every night, anticipating home football games as highlight of the year, and having time to hang out with her friends.
If you want or your kids want to go away, and you can afford it, then fine, but I do get so tired of being told that my kid wont' graduate because they stay home. What a crock.
No one said kids who don't live on campus won't graduate -- you've twisted words and turned them into something else entirely. Lots of people said that living on campus for at least a year is a way to give the greatest chance of success.
I totally agree that
if you've told your kids that dorms are bad, living in a tiny space with a total stranger (would you never get to know that person?) is awful, etc., etc., etc., they would be unsuccessful there. Not because dorms are actually bad, but because you'd have convinced them that it's a living arrangement not condusive to academics. It'd be a matter of self-fulfilling prophecy.
I wouldn't live in a dorm room now either- but I'm 46. My daughter went from living in a large, comfortably furnished bedroom at home with her own bath attached to it and a large walk in closet to living in a tiny room with a roommate and sharing a bathroom with other girls and she loves it. She doesn't love the accommodations, she loves the experience and the sense of community that comes from living among her peers. It's also good for her to learn to negotiate the trials and tribulations of living with a roommate in a small space.
I could say all these things about my daughter. She would like more space, but she loves the convenience of the dorms, and she loves the people on her floor.
. Now my daughter on the other hand wants to be a doctor. She is in 10th grade. She wants to go to University of Florida. We live in Georgia. Out of state tuition is $30000 a year. I do not plan on paying that much for school. Before her senior year I plan on moving us to Florida so I can get in state tuition. She will probably get scholarships, grants and whatever else is needed for her career. I know after med school she will have a ton of loans to pay but she wants to be an OB/GYN and she said they make almost $300000 a year so I am sure she can handle that.
