[ransomnote]

Here's the worst of the 11 and a few relevant details:

Southern University at New Orleans, Louisiana Graduation rate: 4% Undergraduates: 2,590 Median SAT score: 715 Pell Grant recipients: 75.8%

So 75% of students are recipients of pell grants and 4% of students are actually graduating!? Couldn't we require schools receiving Pell Grant monies to maintain a certain minimum graduation rate? Wait, that would "encourage" fraud. Median SAT scores are 715 at this school...

[One Name]

I was scratching my head until I realized the SAT score was cumulative... been a while since I took them...

Couldn’t qualify for a Pell Grant. Have met some “graduates” since who couldn’t compose a clear sentence in English.

Guess I’m doomed to the underclass.

[giotto]

Median SAT scores are 715 at this school

Wait a minute, is that the total score? If I recall correctly, the highest possible total is 1600. A reasonably smart 6th grader could make 715.

[Moose4]

That’s an interesting mixture of historically black colleges/universities (Southern, Texas Southern, Coppin State) and satellite campuses of larger state institutions (the two Kent State satellites, Purdue, etc.).

}:-)4

[Verginius Rufus]

Some of those listed are branch campuses--perhaps their best students transfer to the main campus after two years.

It isn;'t clear if they are talking about 4-year graduation rates or 6-year rates. There are so many students who need more time because they are working or have families that a lot of schools track the 6-year figure (after 6 years the number of additional students who manage to complete a degree apparently isn't very high)

[DemforBush]

Wow, some of those are just plain awful! I can see a rationale in maybe a few cases. Sometimes extension campuses are easier to get into than the main one, and folks will enroll for just one year in the hopes of transferring to the main campus. That sort of thing.

For the most part, though, this is ridiculous, if not entirely surprising. I saw a lot of crap in grad school (I was a TA) from both the university side and students who tried to hustle the aid system. Universities hate to have students wash out, but if they wash out past the refund deadline, it stings a *whole* lot less. And all of us TA’s in the department had several students who saw their need-based aid as “free money” and just goofed off. I even had one student who would use her aid money to sign up for a full course load, and then drop half of them a week later to get the refund and spent the money on clothes. (I don’t know what kind of financial assistance it was that she could pull that stunt, but she did, until the aid department got wise after a few semesters).

In any case, I agree there needs to be more accountability here.

[Straight Vermonter]

Median SAT scores are 715 at this school.

One of my sons damn near beat that on each of the 3 sections. He only got 2 out of 3.

[MacMattico]

I think I saw two satellite campuses of Kent State and at least one other school in Ohio. They'll have to update the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song lyrics to “brain dead in O-Hi-O”.

[Elendur]

75% of students are recipients of pell grants and 4% of students are actually graduating!?
///
truly shocking. i know about the trillion of student loean debt, etc. but, this shows the college scam is worse than ithought. a momumental scandal.
...and worse, the USA BORROWS money from our CHILDREN,
to waste like this !