Posted on 09/14/2006 9:01:01 PM PDT by Libertarian444
CHICAGO — When a research group started tracking what happens to Chicago’s public school graduates after they enter college, it came upon a startling and dispiriting finding: the graduation rates at two of the city’s four-year public universities were among the worst in the country.
At Northeastern Illinois University, a tidy commuter campus on the North Side of Chicago, only 17 percent of students who enroll as full-time freshmen graduate within six years, according to data collected by the federal Department of Education. At Chicago State University on the South Side, the overall graduation rate is 16 percent.
As dismal as those rates seem, the universities are not unique. About 50 colleges across the country have a six-year graduation rate below 20 percent, according to the Education Trust, a nonprofit research group.
“If you’re accepting a child into your institution, don’t you have the responsibility to make sure they graduate?” asked Melissa Roderick, the co-director of the Consortium on Chicago School Research, which produced the study.
A federal commission that examined the future of American higher education recommended in August that colleges and universities take more responsibility for ensuring that students complete their education. Charles Miller, the commission chairman, said that if graduation rates were more readily available, universities would be forced to pay more attention to them.
“Universities in America rank themselves on many factors, but graduation rates aren’t even in the mix,” Mr. Miller said. “They don’t talk about it.”
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Cogs in the bloated education bureaucracy. Of course they defend their institutions with 17% graduation rates. In any other other line of work besides education, they'd be fired and have to go out and get a real job. What a scam.
I think we need to lower the bar a little more. After all it is more important to graduate a higher percent of illiterate idiots, than it is to educate them.
College is way too expensive nowadays, and people are finding sometimes it's just not worth the cash.
Yes if you want the kind of profession you can only get going to college, but just going for the sake of going may not be the best decision. I know someone who is an oil burner repairman making more money than most college grads I know.
And his job isn't about to be off-shored.
I've heard, if you invest the money for college and go to work right out of high school, you'll be pretty wealthy when you are young enough to enjoy it.
A child? Are they enrolling 12 year olds?
More than likely they are enrolling ill prepared, immature twits who were pushed through 12 years of public school with no standards.
Is it the bureaucracy's fault that students do not graduate? Remember, many are there to get Pell grants and often drop classes once the grant checks are mailed out. Graduation may not be a priority with many.
"I know someone who is an oil burner repairman making more money than most college grads I know."
My neighbor is an union electrician... he's taking home more than the 50th percentile of local attys I'm betting.
I have a Master's degree, but I make my living on the computer certifications. Actually, I make my living on the skills that the certs represent... and none of that requires a BA or BS.
LOL! I put these two together immediately, too.
I seriously doubt they even care if they graduate or not. As long as the seats are filled and the money is rolling in, graduation is irrelevant; especially, as you noted, when the bulk of the "free" money is bankrolled from the pockets of U.S. taxpayers.
No matter how complex and high tech our society gets, there will always be a need for people who can fix cars, unclog pipes, repair air conditioners and defend our freedoms. And if effete little elitists and journalists sneer condescendingly at these "menials",and congratulate themselves on being in the "enlightened" class just because they have a sheepskin, that just highlights what shallow, conceited and petty people they are.
Despite what the educrats say, not every high school student needs to go to college, and a lot of kids end up buying into their line that you're a loser if you don't have a degree. They end up dropping out after a couple of years, thousands of dollars in debt and feeling like failures, and having wasted all that time that could have been using building a career they're happy with.
Campuses like these are known as "commuter campuses" and dismal "graduation rates" come from a few areas. 1. There are many students who are using it as a stepping stone to a "better" college. 2. There are alot of students who don't go through in less than six years because they work at the same time. These students are also more likely to drop out as they find jobs/professions that don't necessarily need a bachelor's degree. 3. The majority of the students are transfers from community colleges and are often considered the more important constituent. While they are awarding degrees, it is usually to students who enter as sophomores or juniors. Our local state U. awards five to six times the number of degrees than the number incoming first, time freshman it enrolls.
The reason these schools blow off the 17% is because there are more factors involved.
The "Graduation Rate" assumes the student is attending the same school, full time for the entire college career.
A college education really could soon be "off-shored." Using computers, most students can get their education in that manner without all the uber liberal huffing by profs.....and come out...surprise.....EDUCATED!
The myth that every person that graduates from a high school (secondary school) simply MUST go to a 4-yr academic college is ridiculous. Too many of those youngsters are not even sufficiently mature to take advantage, in an academic sense, of the educational opportunities that good colleges/universities can offer. Moreover, they may not have the inherent intellectual capacity required nor the requisite self discipline (See "maturity," above). Moreover, the sociopathologic behavior that too many collge students demostrate is further evidence of their lack of fitness for admission to institutions of (supposed) higher education. Those looking for remedies for low graduation rates should first take a good, hard look at admissions policies.
I agree with you. I have taught at both 4 year and community colleges and enjoy my non-traditional community college students a great deal more. Another factor in this equation is how our all pervasive pop culture preaches that the primary purpose of college is to get drunk, have sex, and disrespect everything. Malcolm Muggeridge identified the problem when he said they go to college and lie drunk in the gutter, the very thing we seek to prevent with education.
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