<p>In the vast majority of cases it’s the student that is the reason for longer grad times. As usual, the problem source is usually in the mirror.</p>
<p>UT-D’s graduation rate is negatively affected by the CAP program. Successful students transfer to UT, but that lowers UTD’s numbers. </p>
<p>Also, students who start at a CC and graduate from the university are not counted in the graduation rate.</p>
<p>What is the CAP program? Also, I am really surprised that UT Dallas graduation rate does not include the CC transfers. UT Dallas has high requirements to get in OOS and tries to recruit National Merit scholars with substantial scholarship money. Therefore, if graduation rates do not include transfer students with as low as 2.5 GPA, I would think the graudation rate would be higher from the high stats incoming freshman class. Why are so many kids leaving UT Dallas before graduation?</p>
<p>
Hmmm… interesting comment. UW-Madison must attract a disproportionate amount of problem students. It has the 9th lowest 4-year graduation rate among the top 10 publics, falling nearly a whopping 40 percentage points below U Va in the latest data listed on College Results Online. UW-Madison is higher than only Ga Tech, which has a lower 4-year rate because it has a very large percentage of engineering students.</p>
<p>4-Year Graduation Rates:
U Va - 84.2%
William and Mary 83.9%
UNC - 70.9%
Michigan - 70.4%
UCLA - 66.2%
UIUC - 62.6%
UC Berkeley - 60.9%
UCSD - 56.4%
UW-Madison - 45.6%
Ga Tech - 33.1%</p>
<p>Wow. I don’t recall top privates having trouble graduating students. Of course the $50K/year COA may have something to do with that.</p>
<p>My understanding is that an inability to register for courses required for one’s major (older students would be given priority) is one cause of lower graduation rates at some schools (I believe this happens at UMASS Lowell and Amherst, based on what I’ve heard from friends attending them). In such cases, the students would not be the problems, but the school. On the other hand, poor performance on the student’s part would also be a reason, or a lack of desire for the student to be there. That’s not always entirely the student’s fault, but the student certainly plays a major role in those situations.</p>
<p>
Very true. That seems to be much more of a problem at some schools than others. From College Results Online data, UIUC has 30,745 undergrads on which it spent $10,856 per student per year and has a 62.6% 4-year grad rate. UW-Madison, in contrast, has 27,882 undergrads on which it spent $13,973 per student and has a substantially lower 45.6% 4-year grad rate. </p>
<p>The discrepancy between the two does not appear to be explained by the number of undergrads or spending per student. UW-Madison’s problem seems to be either a poor student selection process or a mismanaged university - or potentially both.</p>
<p>You can’t just look at the 4 year grad rates in isolation. You must look at the range of SATs, GPAs, Class rank of the incoming freshmen as well. Comparing U-Wisconsin to UVA is not an appropriate comparison in my opinion. UVA is far more selective than U-Wisconsin. Its incoming freshmen have higher SATs, GPAs, etc. High academic achievement in high school correlates with high 4 year grad rates.</p>
<p>It is fairer to compare Wisconsin to some of the other Big 10 schools.</p>
<p>As for Georgia Tech, I think a fair comparison is Virginia Tech. Vtech has tons of engineering students but its 4 year grad rate is 52%. So what’s up with Georgia Tech??!!</p>
<p>
UIUC and Michigan, yes. Other public Big 10 schools aren’t as selective as far as admissions go.</p>
<p>Looking at College Results Online again, there’s only a 65 point difference between U Va’s and UW-Madison’s median SAT. That’s not much.</p>
<p>Or people just like to stay in Madison, double major work while in school or many other possibilities. The average UVa student has a family income around double that at UW. They don’t have to worry about working throughout school and summers. To assume some nefarious reason is just projecting your opinion. Actually according to NSSE data students at UW don’t have any more significant difficulty getting classes than at UVa. </p>
<p>I did read today that U Illinois has to borrow millions to make payroll due to the messed up state of Illinois funding. Now that’s a real problem. Meanwhile UW is adding faculty and staff to further improve class access and other services.</p>
<p>"Let me start by thanking all members of the community who developed proposals for the first two rounds of the Madison Initiative for Undergraduates. We saw a range of impressive ideas aimed not only at enhancing, but also transforming, aspects of undergraduate education and the student experience on campus. We set out not simply to fill gaps or address bottlenecks in courses and majors, as important as those goals are, but also to have an impact on the way students are taught and how they learn, both in and outside the classroom. We also made the diversity of the faculty who teach them a high priority for the initiative.</p>
<p>The student board and the general oversight committee have worked long and hard, reading, assessing, ranking and trying to add value to your proposals. At the end of the first two rounds, we have approved initiatives that take us over the $10 million mark. In the fall, we will call for a third round of proposals and will be able to spend another $4 million. We are on track to add as many as 75 faculty positions. We have funded a range of important student and academic service initiatives, including additional Freshman Interest Groups, new residential learning communities and internship programs. We have set aside well over $1 million in ongoing funding in anticipation of a proposal that takes a holistic and innovative approach to student advising. Money has also been held aside for a promising proposal to establish spaces for technology-assisted teaching and learning."</p>
<p><a href=“Under new law, state universities can borrow to cover costs”>Under new law, state universities can borrow to cover costs;
<p>[New</a> law allows SIUE to borrow cash to make payroll - Education - bnd.com](<a href=“http://www.bnd.com/2010/06/09/1286395/law-will-let-universities-borrow.html]New”>http://www.bnd.com/2010/06/09/1286395/law-will-let-universities-borrow.html)</p>
<p>Sure, barrons :rolleyes: …students and their families have an extra $40,000 or so lying around to spend on staying in Madison a few extra years to earn their undergrad degree because they ‘like’ it there.</p>
<p>Students at many schools pursue double majors and work while taking classes without that impacting their ability to graduate in 4 years. I have no idea why you would think otherwise. And other schools’ 4-year graduate rates are still much higher than Wisconsin’s even with those working double major students. </p>
<p>And yes, the state of Illinois is in financial difficulty. So is Wisconsin with their mandated unpaid furloughs and horrendous per capita deficit, noted by Pew:</p>
<p>
[Todd</a> A. Berry: The $2.7 billion state deficit no one told you about](<a href=“http://host.madison.com/ct/news/opinion/column/article_cd4c3181-c46b-5184-8a1c-f581141b69c7.html]Todd”>Todd A. Berry: The $2.7 billion state deficit no one told you about)</p>
<p>Barrons, perhaps understanding the devastating consequences of racking up additional large amounts of debt by having to take extra years to earn an undergrad degree at Wisconsin would be easier for you to understand if you read the following article:
[The</a> next generation of home buyers has too much college debt to buy a house | Burbed.com](<a href=“burbed.com - This website is for sale! - burbed Resources and Information.”>burbed.com - This website is for sale! - burbed Resources and Information.)</p>
<p>Ok, let us compare Indiana University Bloomington to U Wisconsin at Madison. IU is less selective than Madison. The 25-75 Critical Reading SATs of admitted freshmen of both schools is about the same. And the 25-75 Math SATs of incoming freshmen at UW is much higher than those at IU. Yet IU’s 4 year grad rate is 51%.</p>
<p>And JiffsMom, here is the 25-75 percentiles of the SATs taken from the most recent common data sets for UW and UVA.
CR Math writing</p>
<p>UW 540-670 620-730 570-670
UVA 600-710 630-730 610-710</p>
<p>There is a significant difference between the critical reading and writing scores of the two sets of freshmen. I think you will get a strenuous argument from most of the CCers that a difference of 65 points in median SATs is “not much”!!!</p>
<p>The point is that UW’s 4-year graduation rate is much more like the less selective publics than like the other schools among the top 10 publics, with the exception of Ga Tech with their large percentage of engineering students.</p>
<p>While 65 points in median SATs may be somewhat of a difference, is that really enough to explain a nearly 40 percentage point difference between U Va and UW-Madison in their 4-year graduation rates? There’s a 45 point difference in median SATs between U Va and UIUC, and UIUC’s 4-year graduation rate gap is much lower at a little over 20 percentage points difference. UIUC has a larger percentage of Pell Grant recipients than UW-Madison, as well.</p>
<p>Comparing UW-Madison with their SAT score peer in the top 10, UCSD, there’s still a gap in 4-year graduation rates, even though UCSD has significantly more students who qualify for Pell Grants.</p>
<p>UCSD:<br>
median SAT - 1260<br>
% Receiving Pell Grants - 32.8%
4-year graduation rate - 56.4%</p>
<p>UW-Madison:
median SAT - 1260
% Receiving Pell Grants - 13.1%
4-year graduation rate - 45.6%</p>
<p>USNews, despite their faults, does try to model graduation rates as a function of SAT scores, % Pell Grants, and probably other influencing factors. Here’s what they say about actual versus predicted 6-year graduation rates for UW-Madison versus some other public universities:</p>
<p>6-Year Graduation Rates</p>
<p>UW-Madison: Predicted 78%, Actual 82%
U Michigan: Predicted 86%, Actual 88%
UI-UC: Predicted 78%, Actual 82%
UNC: Predicted 84%, Actual 88%
UVA: Predicted 89%, Actual 93%
UWa (Seattle): Predicted 71%, Actual 77%
GTech: Predicted 83%, Actual 77%</p>
<p>Based on this methodology (though I don’t know the details of how they model “predicted graduation rates”), many of the highly rated public universities have 6-year graduation rates 4-6% higher than “predicted.” Georgia Tech is the outlier, and this probably is due to the engineering focus compared with the large Liberal Arts and Sciences programs at the other public universities.</p>
<p>How many students and families can really afford to pay/take out loans for 5 or 6 years for a 4-year undergrad degree? When you factor in living expenses, we’re generally talking about an additional $10,000-ish (in-state, OOS cost is much higher) per semester.</p>
<p>Maybe to some the sky’s the limit. But most people have to keep an eye on the bottom line, and many families have more than one child that will attend college.</p>
<p>when i looked at the grad rates of the school my son is going to i was worried…similar stats as the post that showed ga tech…however i dug deeper into their common data, and some available reports…that grad rate changed significantly with the gpa and test scores. those entering with high gpa and test scores showed a grad rate that was very good.</p>
<p>My son is a Geology major at CSU Sacramento who has just finished his Freshman year and I doubt he will graduate in four years. There have been severe cutbacks in funding for UC and CSU campuses due to the budget crisis in California with the result that many schools have had to cut back on the number of classes they can offer in a semester, particularly in core subjects. As a Geology major he has to take all the same calculus, physics and chemistry courses required for engineering majors, resulting in these courses being in heavy demand while sections offered are being cut back. During his freshman year my son was able to take only one semester of calculus. For the Fall semester of his sophmore year he is registered for Calculus II and the Basic Geology course for majors but is wait-listed for Physics I (which he will probably get since he is #1 on the list) and has no chance of getting into Chemistry I. I do not see him finishing these core math and science requirements before the end of his third year.</p>
<p>For the above reason the 4 year graduation rate at CSU Sacramento is very low. The 6 year graduation rate is also less than 50% and that is best understood by looking at the entering SAT scores of freshman there which are 470 in CR and 490 in Math. 25% of freshmen enter with a 410 or less in CR and 430 or less in Math. Like other state schools CSUs often admit large numbers of students who are simply not capable of doing college level work and have little prospect of ever graduating. The Ivy Leauge schools on the other hand admit very few applicants who lack the ability to succeed in college and therefore have much higher graduation rates.</p>
<p>For any of these schools with lower graduation rates could a large co-op program be a significant factor?</p>