Schools with graduation rates of less than 50% are below the national average, and yes, likely mediocre in my opinion. Yes, I realize there many be nontraditional learners, the poor,etc, enrolled, but some public universities have graduation rates below one-third. I am not going to pretend that is acceptable or average, and if we refuse to acknowledge the problem, we are unlikely to begin to fix it.
We should not pretend that every school is doing a good job educating most of its students, though any school might be fine for any particular student. We should be trying to improve the performance of underperforming schools.
I would take exception to that with our state flagship. It has accumulated hundreds of millions of debt as a state taxpayer subsidized school lavishly spending on a money losing athletics program, including private helicopter trips for the football coach, etc. Makes no sense. Its mandate should be education. Sports programs are fine with they bring in revenue. But when they pull taxpayer money that could have gone to attracting better faculty, supporting more research, providing better facilities, I absolutely can fault the school for not being perceived as stronger academically. Given the academic local student pool it has to work with, it can do better.
College graduation rates are mostly based on incoming student academic strength and financial status. Any college with incoming 4.0 students with no financial difficulties will have a high graduation rate. Any college with incoming 2.5 students who struggle to afford college will have a low graduation rate. The likelihood of graduation for an individual student is mostly based on that studentâs academic strength and financial status, regardless of which college the student attends.
Raising college graduation rates in general likely means some or all of the following:
Improving K-12 education so that graduates are more college-ready.
Lowering costs and improving financial aid so that students do not drop out due to running out of money.
Limiting access to college so that the less prepared students cannot attend college at all â i.e. walking back on the idea of having open admission or minimally selective colleges to offer the opportunity for a second chance for those who did not do well in high school.
#1 is something that everyone claims to want, but rarely there is much agreement on how, and the reform of the year or decade often fails to live up to its expectations (perhaps because pilot programs with enthusiastic teachers well versed in the reform do not translate well to the teacher population in general who may not be as enthusiastic or familiar with the reform, or may be opposed to it for political reasons).
#2 is likely to be favored mainly by left-leaning people (and there may not be enough money for it), and #3 is likely to be favored mainly by right-leaning people, so partisan / ideological politics will get in the way.
As generally stated earlier, average State U serves a unique purpose to educate the people of that state. Because this is a different purpose than Elite U, the educational experiences are different.
Most of these differences have already been discussed. But a difference yet to be mentioned is the diversity of experience.
By nature of being exclusive, the student population at Elite U cannot be diverse. The hyper-focused approach on academics that Elite U students have chosen prevents them from learning other non-academic âstuff.â There is only so much time in a day.
Also, many Elite U students will have attended elite high schools, meaning the deficit of experience with a true representation of the population will have been non-existent for many years of those impressionable studentsâ lives.
State U, with its high acceptance rate and focus on in-state students, will bring in a much broader sample of the local population, enriching the student experience beyond the academics. This population will be the future teachers, nurses, law enforcement officers, etc. that students will be living amongst if they stay in that area after graduation.
Elite U, surely, opens doors of opportunity, and depending on the profession, may make those doors easier to open and lead to greater achievement. High achievers at State U can find that same path, but often takes more individual effort and a little bit of luck. But as always, school selection for those that have both Elite U and State U as options comes down to fit and affordability.
Letâs say there is a very bright high school student in Louisiana. She wants to graduate with a Finance degree, go to NY for a bit to work on Wall Street, with plans of eventually returning home for family & personal reasons. She gets in to both LSU and UT Austin. Which school would give her the better shot at Wall Street? Just about everyone will say UT Austin.
This is sorta kinda true, but ignores the reality that certain colleges devote resources to advising and creating pathways to graduation and others donât. And this is not related to the socio economic status of its students.
We frequently have kids posting about their issues with transfer credits, not realizing that theyâve maxed out and will need three more years (not two) at the next institution; kids who have switched majors and didnât realize that the Stats 1 course they took freshman year is appropriate for a marketing major, but doesnât tick the box for a psych major; kids who run out of courses senior year in the âprogramâ they are in.
This doesnât reflect poor preparation- this reflects an administration which does not set â8 semesters and youâre out with a degreeâ as a priority. Shame on the provost. Shame on the dean of students. And shame on the taxpayers. The time for a kid to learn that becoming a pharmacist requires A, B, C and D-- in that order-- is freshman year, not AFTER the kid has a pharm tech certificate from the local CC and has already transferred to the public U which is in commuting distance from the parents home. Ditto architecture, social work, library science⊠kids feel like theyâve wasted two years-- in some cases three if they have already plugged away at their first year at the four year university-- and itâs kind of true. The fact that these kids are usually low income so donât have personal experience with adults who have these jobs- irrelevant to the advising issue. Does society lose out when a talented kid becomes a pharm tech instead of a pharmacist because the kid has used up most of his Pell without getting closer to the terminal degree? I look at the line at my local Walgreens (closed for two hours at lunch for staffing reasons; closes at 8 pm instead of midnight due to staffing issues; no pharmacy services after 6 pm on Sundays) and suspect that it does.
The kids with a 4.0 also often self-select to go to âstrongerâ colleges. There are network effects. You want to hang out with your academic peers, other things equal.
Not necessarily true. A lot of âmediocreâ flagships or lower-tier state schools will have star students who could have performed well anywhere. They go to these schools for any number of reasons: they donât want to go far from home, they want to avoid debt, they come from high schools that donât send students to elite colleges, so they donât get a lot of support from their HS counselors in applying to those schools, or perhaps theyâre first-gen so their families are not really savvy about the world of college admissions. Or maybe their career goals wonât take them far from home so, so theyâre focusing on schools with solid local reputations that will help them get licensed or certified for those careers (especially true for future teachers, accountants, and others who need to apply for state certification). Also, plenty of schools that you might think are âmediocreâ from a distance are actually held in higher esteem closer to home, because theyâve developed good relationships in the community. Iâve taught plenty of these kinds of students at these kinds of universities. Theyâre outstanding, but they have grown up with different expectations than you seem to expect from a 4.0 student.
This is true only of students who have the financial resources to do so, or those whose family situation does not constrain them to stay local. Self selection requires a certain amount of privilege and freedom.
A rigorous education majoring in cog sci, neuroscience, bio medical engineering or CS which are apparently the only fields anyone cares about and has employment prospects beyond folding sweaters at Old Navy or Barista!
When comparing universities for a student, of course, one can be better and the other worse, sometimes by a large margin. However, I do not believe that a school ranked #5 (in US News or other list) is different than one ranked #20, for example.
In general, I do look at graduation rates. Yes, it differs based on student bodies but as we see with CSU or CUNY, schools can do a great job for all students. The flagships with the worst (<50%) graduation rates (6 years) are:
University of Alaska Fairbanks
University of Montana
University of New Mexico
A flagship that is very good but seems like a private university than a public ones is University of Virginia.
Thanks for starting this. Can you explain why mediocre state flagship is good for med school? Is it due to cost, easier to maintain high GPA or something else.
BOTHâŠand the required courses for medical school admission are sufficiently challenging just about everywhere. Letâs just sayâŠorganic chemistry isnât a cake walk anywhere.