College Comparison IV: Four-Year Graduation Rates

College Search & Selection
1

<p>In order to assist some in their college search process, I have prepared a series of threads that will compare colleges on a variety of measurements. In making these comparisons, I have created three broad groups (private national universities, public national universities and liberal arts colleges) and provide comparisons involving 117 colleges (national universities ranked in the USNWR Top 75 and LACs ranked in the USNWR Top 40). </p>

<p>Following is a comparison on FOUR-YEAR GRADUATION RATES. For many students and families in this era of financial difficulty, being able to graduate on-time is important. IMO, this important statistic should be part of the USNWR ranking methodology (albeit modified for students engaging in programs that are explicitly longer than 8 semesters). </p>

<p>To aid in the comparisons, I have included the level of the highest-ranking public universities with each of the private groups for National Universities and LACs. This should help families appreciate the way that the very top scoring public compares with their private competition. </p>

<p>I hope that you enjoy the thread and find some helpful information. Good luck to all in your college search process!</p>

<p>Four-year Graduation Rate , Private National University</p>

<p>91% , Notre Dame
90% , Princeton
90% , Yale
90% , Georgetown
88% , Harvard
88% , U Penn
88% , Duke
88% , Boston College
87% , Columbia
87% , Cornell
86% , U Chicago
86% , Dartmouth
86% , Northwestern
86% , Tufts
86% , Brandeis
85% , Wash U
85% , TOP PUBLIC (U Virginia)
84% , Brown
84% , Vanderbilt
83% , Wake Forest
82% , MIT
82% , Emory
82% , Rice
81% , Caltech
81% , Johns Hopkins
79% , Stanford
77% , NYU
76% , George Washington
75% , Fordham
74% , U Rochester
74% , Boston University
74% , Pepperdine
72% , Lehigh
70% , Carnegie Mellon
70% , Syracuse
70% , Worcester
69% , USC
64% , Rensselaer
64% , U Miami
59% , Tulane
59% , SMU
58% , Case Western
45% , Yeshiva
31% , BYU</p>

<p>Four-year Graduation Rate , State University</p>

<p>85% , U VIRGINIA
82% , WILLIAM & MARY
75% , U N CAROLINA
70% , U MICHIGAN
67% , U DELAWARE
65% , UCLA
64% , UC BERKELEY
64% , U ILLINOIS
64% , UC S BARBARA
63% , U MARYLAND
60% , PENN STATE
57% , UC IRVINE
57% , U PITTSBURGH
56% , UC SAN DIEGO
56% , U FLORIDA
56% , U CONNECTICUT
53% , UC S CRUZ
52% , VIRGINIA TECH
51% , U WISCONSIN
51% , U WASHINGTON
51% , U GEORGIA
51% , INDIANA U
50% , CLEMSON
49% , RUTGERS
48% , U TEXAS
47% , UC DAVIS
47% , MICHIGAN ST
42% , OHIO STATE
41% , TEXAS A&M
41% , U MINNESOTA
40% , U IOWA
38% , PURDUE
31% , GEORGIA TECH</p>

<p>Four-year Graduation Rate , LAC</p>

<p>92% , Davidson
92% , Holy Cross
91% , Williams
91% , Haverford
90% , Pomona
90% , Carleton
90% , Claremont McK
89% , Wesleyan
89% , W&L
88% , Swarthmore
88% , Middlebury
87% , Vassar
87% , Colgate
86% , US Naval Acad
86% , Lafayette
85% , Amherst
85% , Hamilton
85% , Bates
85% , Bucknell
85% , Kenyon
85% , Whitman
85% , TOP PUBLIC (U Virginia)
84% , Wellesley
84% , Bowdoin
84% , Colby
84% , Macalester
83% , Harvey Mudd
83% , Smith
82% , Barnard
82% , U Richmond
82% , Occidental
81% , Grinnell
81% , Bryn Mawr
81% , Trinity
80% , Furman
79% , Mt. Holyoke
79% , Scripps
78% , Colorado College
77% , US Military Acad
73% , Sewanee
69% , Oberlin
68% , Bard</p>

2

<p>I disagree with using 4-year graduation rates to rank colleges. I understand the need for prospective students to know if they can graduate “on time,” but I don’t think that it’s a good indicator at all.</p>

<p>There are many students that take time off for personal reasons, and that has no reflection on the school. There are also kids that take time off to do research or go abroad- to me these experiences are more worthwhile than getting a degree “on-time.”</p>

3

<p>I think it’s a wise thing both for parents and prospective students to consider, for several reasons. Schools that are listed in the top sections of the above groups are doing something right. I’m not saying other schools are doing something wrong, but there are reasons for the very low 4 year graduation percentages. Although Sungchul is correct and kids take time off for personal reasons/study abroad, etc. I think there is more to the low %s than that. Students at the top graduating schools above also go abroad in large numbers.</p>

<p>If a kid takes 5 years to graduate (for a “4” year degree), then parents are out not only the tuition/r & b for that year, but the kid has sacrificed career income for the additional year he is in school.</p>

<p>Back in the day, we were <em>expected</em> to graduate in 4 years. I have often wondered what happened to that thought.</p>

4

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<p>Not necessarily. If the student takes off a semester or a year to work or travel, the parents aren’t paying tuition or room & board for that semester or that year. I did that “back in the day”: money was tight at home and I couldn’t earn enough in part-time jobs so I took a semester off in the spring of my sophomore year to work in a nearby factory. The money I saved through eight consecutive months of factory work, plus continued term-time work when I returned to school, substantially paid for my last 2 1/2 years of college. I graduated a semester “late,” but that reflects no failing on the part of the school or myself; nor did it cost my parents an extra dime in tuition or room & board as I was fully self-sufficient while I was working. My brother, meanwhile, went through college in 5 or 6 years (I forget which) in an engineering coop program that let him earn some money and gain valuable work experience and job contacts during the semesters he was working. Like me, he wouldn’t show up as a 4-year graduate, but it was no failing on the part of the school, no failing on his part, and no additional cost to our parents, who actually saved money by having their kids earn more. These sorts of stories are routine at public colleges and universities, and I believe they are the principal reason for comparably lower 4-year graduation rate at public institutions.</p>

<p>As for the “sacrifice of career income,” that’s also a debatable point. Sometimes, maybe, but a lot of kids don’t get (or even try to get) high-paying jobs right out of college. Lots of my friends went into the peace corps or other low-paying public service or public-interest sector jobs after graduating; the amount of money they left on the table by taking an extra semester or year to graduate would have been pretty negligible, and in any event paled in comparison with what they were leaving on the table by opting for lower-paying jobs. But maximizing career earnings was never the point, for them or for me. I went to grad school; delaying it by a year didn’t substantially change my career trajectory. I suppose in principle I could have finished grad school a year earlier but there are so many contingencies once you get to such a long causal chain that it’s all pretty difficult to calculate. And who knows, maybe entering academia a year later might mean I elect to work an extra year before retiring, substituting one additional high-paying year late in my career for one less low-paying year at the beginning of my career?</p>

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<p>Not sure what your day was, but back in my day (the 1970s) that was never such a clear expectation. Many, probably most of my classmates did graduate in four years. A sizable fraction didn’t. Some, like me, took time off to work. Others took time off to travel. A few took time off for health or other personal reasons. None of that was seen as outside the mainstream or in any way a negative reflection on the school or the individual student. I suspect those expectations still vary a great deal from institution to institution. At high-priced elite private schools there may be more pressure to graduate “on time” because many schools won’t guarantee financial aid beyond 4 years—a pretty powerful stick. But I’m not at all convinced that way is “better” or reflects a superior educational environment. I think that’s just extrapolating way too much from the data which, while interesting, in the end just don’t tell us all that much.</p>

5

<p>

There are other legitimate reasons for taking more than 4 years; for example, some may want to double major; some may decide to change major, say from pre-med to engineering or business. Furthermore, there are programs that may require more than 4 years to complete, like engineering, architecture, pharmacy, etc. That may be why two of the top three publics have no engineering, and serious engineering schools like MIT(82%), Stanford(79%), Carnegie Mellon(70%) rank so much lower than their peers. Similarly, Harvey Mudd(83%) is way down compared to other LAC’s despite having the most selective incoming student body.</p>

6

<p>I understand the objections, but many of them are not unique to a type of university. Doing study abroad, taking a semester off, changing majors, etc.-that happens at both publics and privates. </p>

<p>These are consequential data points for parents planning their finances and counting on a 4-year graduation schedule. Certainly a low number should be investigated in the college search process so that a prospective student can understand how likely he/she is to graduate on schedule. If you do this, then you can confidently enroll at a school and know that there are not institutional impediments to achieving the goal of finishing on-time.</p>

7

<p>Hawkette,
Tis is a completely stupid metric unless it is adjusted to exclude engineering programs, 2+3 programs, etc. You should know this. What is your motive for posting this drivle? Using this metric you would convlude that GA Tech is a crappy school. I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that you were an arts and science major in college therefore these things don’t occur to you orat you went to UVA???</p>

8

<p>tom,
I agree with you that these need to be adjusted if used for ranking purposes. I made that exact point in the opening post, </p>

<p>“IMO, this important statistic should be part of the USNWR ranking methodology (albeit modified for students engaging in programs that are explicitly longer than 8 semesters).”</p>

9

<p>Yes, but then why do you post the data and present it as valid?</p>

10

<p>The data is valid. In this case, it reports 4-year grad rates. To my knowledge, it’s the best available information we have on this metric which I actually think is important to prospective students and faculty. </p>

<p>The values and educational needs that we bring to the college search process will differ individually, but the contrasts in the numbers do help us form more informed opinions. I don’t focus on a single datapoint in forming a judgment about any school, but look at the collective datapoints (usually 20-30) and can see where different colleges have strengths and weaknesses and how this might affect the undergraduate experience.</p>

11

<p>^^ My D will begin college in the fall of 2010. A school’s 4-year graduation rate means just about nothing to me; why on earth would I care about that? I’m much more interested in the ultimate graduation rate—what percentage of enrolled freshmen ultimately finish college? No one provides that data. The 6-year graduation rate is a somewhat better proxy, though also flawed. Some kids graduate in 7 years for perfectly legitimate reasons, like serious health issues or because they’re in the National Guard and get called up for an active duty tour in Iraq or Afghanistan or something. And as I understand it, the 6-year graduation rate as reported in the Common Data Set and from there on US News doesn’t count transfers as successful graduates of the original school. Frankly, if my D starts at one school then transfers for a major that’s not available at her original school, I’d consider that a successful outcome so long as she ultimately graduates—and not a failing on the part of the original school, the way a crude 4-year or 6-year graduation rate seems to assume. To my mind, 4-year graduation rates are a pretty much worthless data point.</p>

12

<p>At least at the schools I’ve looked at, the number of students who eventually graduate after more than six years is essentially zero. </p>

<p>These grad rates have three unlying flaws:</p>

<p>a) Colleges get docked for students who transfer out, but no credit for those who transfer in and are not included in any graduation rate data. This just kills a large state university where large numbers of junior college kids transfer into the state U, graduate, and are never counted.</p>

<p>b) Academically rigorous colleges are penalized. As Stanford’s pres once asked USNEWS, does anyone really believe that CalTech would be a better school if it replaced all those hard physics courses with basketweaving courses and started handing out As? D’s will get you a diploma at Williams or Amherst, at Swarthmore, you have to have a C average and get a C or better in any course to earn credit for the course the final two years. There are kids who simply reach a point where graduating is not in the cards. They transfer out, and the college gets docked statistically for being a champsionship course played from the back tees. You have to make an assessement whether you think that is a good thing or a bad thing.</p>

<p>c) Large differences in grad rates (I’m talking more than a few points) are almost always because one school has rich students and another doesn’t. There is nothing that many publics could do to push their grad rates up to rich-kid school levels. Their students sometimes have to quit school to feed themselves or their families.</p>

13

<p>bc,
If you are someone who cares about the financial impact of being institutionally delayed in the pursuit of a diploma, then this is a meaningful metric. In addition, while it can’t be quantified, I suspect that there is a local cultural effect as well. Schools with large numbers graduating ontime (or not) are likely to spawn similar behaviour in other students.</p>

14

<p>Engineering schools get unfairly treated by this since their students need to take more classes.</p>

<p>Also “weed out” style schools like Georgia Tech are penalized.</p>

15

<p>^ Well, I’d think that many prospective engineering students wouldn’t want to attend a “weed out” style school.</p>

16

<p>^The data is worthless. Big schools that have to average in soft and hard majors look far worse. Try not to just think in terms of “extremes”. Schools without engineering programs are artifically bumped up for having only easier majors or majors with less class requirements.</p>

17

<p>By the way, another title for this thread could be “which schools admit students who are not responsible enough to take charge of their own education and graduate on time”. But, of course, even these numbers would have to be adjusted, too.</p>

18

<p>Some schools, like William & Mary, don’t allow you to stay for more than 5 years!</p>

<p>And is time off still counted as part of the yearly graduation rate?</p>

19

<p>Graduation rates are an interesting statistic, but as many others have pointed out, one that is inherently flawed. Perhaps they are one more thing that might be considered by prospective students and their parents, but I certainly would not give it any great weight. There are many legitimate reasons why a lower percentage of students graduate in 4 years at one school versus another. It may or may not have anything to do with the school itself or its policies (as would be the case if the school wasn’t offering required classes frequently enough or not providing enough seat capacity in these classes --which is what I think the OP is trying to get at). </p>

<p>Sometimes it’s just differences in the student bodies that result in lower percentages – for example, whether the students tend to be highly career-oriented (business majors, pre-med, pre-law, etc.) who just follow their chosen path without deviation, or if they tend to be more generalists who can’t decide on a major until relatively late in their college career or who switch majors several times. Also, the percentage of students who need to work part-time for financial reasons (perhaps taking reduced course loads each term or even taking an occasional semester off) will vary from school to school.</p>

<p>Here’s an example (admittedly extreme and unique) of how these data can be very misleading: Why is BYU’s 4-year graduation rate an abysmal 31%? Because a large majority of the students leave (usually right after the freshman year) to go off on a 2-year church mission before returning for the final three years. That has absolutely nothing at all to do with the school. (And yes, I know it’s a church-run school, but the mission work is entirely voluntary and a personal decision for each student.) Including the 4-year graduation rate for BYU in a simple listing as the OP has done – without any context or explanation – gives a very false and negative impression of BYU.</p>

20

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<p>No, I don’t think so, for all the reasons I’ve already stated. You’re wrongly assuming that not graduating from the school at which you originally matriculate within 4 years means buying more than 4 years of college tuition, room & board, etc. There could be all sorts of reasons this is not true–time off for work, illness, transfer to another school which could result in graduation in 4 consecutive years but is not recorded in the original school’s 4-year graduation rate, graduation in 8 non-consecutive semesters after a transfer that results in a brief interruption, participation in a 5- or 6-year coop program in which some semesters are spent working, participation in a 5-year degree program (fairly common in architecture, for example), participation in a 3+2 or 5-year joint degree program in which both the bachelors and masters degree are awarded after 5 years, and so on.</p>

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<p>Perhaps, but you seem to be assuming there’s just a single standard model of undergraduate education in which 4 years to graduation is normal and “ontime.” That may be true at LACs and in many arts and sciences programs in universities. It is not true in many other fields.</p>