The trouble with public colleges

barrons · May 11, 2009, 10:14pm

Many more students at large publics are more or less independent from parents, some of whom could have afforded to pay but chose not to or the kid wanted to do it on his own. They work part-time and graduating in four years is pretty far down the priority list. Outside a few to privates most don’t really offer all that great fin aid and the nut is MUCH larger. Lots easier to write a $4000 check per semester than $20,000.

1980collegegrad · May 12, 2009, 7:34am

Top ten for 4 year graduation rate per US News & World Reports: [Best</a> Colleges - Education - US News and World Report](<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/college/highest-grad-rate]Best”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/college/highest-grad-rate)

St. Francis Medical Center College of Nursing Peoria, IL 4-year graduation rate: 92 % 
Williams College Williamstown, MA 4-year graduation rate: 91 % 
Swarthmore College Swarthmore, PA 4-year graduation rate: 91 % 
Davidson College Davidson, NC 4-year graduation rate: 91 % 
Carleton College Northfield, MN 4-year graduation rate: 91 % 
Georgetown University Washington, DC 4-year graduation rate: 90 % 
University of Notre Dame Notre Dame, IN 4-year graduation rate: 90 % 
Princeton University Princeton, NJ 4-year graduation rate: 89 % 
Harvard University Cambridge, MA 4-year graduation rate: 88 % 
College of the Holy Cross Worcester, MA 4-year graduation rate: 88 %

hudsonvalley51 · May 12, 2009, 8:10am

1980collegegrad --The USNews information is a year out of date. It reflects the 2007-2008 CDS. The data I cited, where I noted that Holy Cross had a 92% 4-year grad rate, is from the 2008-2009 Common Data Set.

TheDad · May 12, 2009, 1:16pm

I believe that the 4-year graduation stats start by subtracting out the students who don’t stay at the college. E.g., if six percent don’t come back for the second year, the best you can get is 94 percent. Realistically, there is “melt” every year at every college for one reason or another. Iirc, even Harvard has a 3-4 percent melt over four years. So Vanderbilt’s 85 percent is quite respectable.

Going from memory, I think D’s LAC lost 6-8 percent of their first-year class. However, as a whole, if you stay, you will graduate in four years. The advising staff is on the students like white on rice, checking major and degree progress every term.

chrissyblu · May 12, 2009, 8:14pm

My D is in the School of Theatre, Film and Television at UCLA and they guaranteed us she would graduate in 4 years. 90% of the kids do. They hound them and have counselors in the major. So I guess it depends on the major at these big schools whether the kids graduate in time or not…

Plainsman · May 12, 2009, 8:40pm

"4-year Graduation Rate , LAC

OUTSTANDING

91% , Williams
91% , Swarthmore
91% , Carleton
91% , Davidson
88% , Vassar
87% , W&L
86% , Middlebury
86% , Pomona
86% , Haverford
85% , Wellesley
85% , Claremont McK
85% , Colgate

VERY GOOD

84% , Amherst
84% , Wesleyan
84% , Colby
83% , Bowdoin
83% , Smith
83% , Hamilton
83% , Bates
83% , Macalester
82% , US Naval Acad
81% , Grinnell
80% , Bryn Mawr
77% , Harvey Mudd

RAISES SOME QUESTIONS

66% , Oberlin"

Hawkette, your information (above) regarding Oberlin is flawed. You should know that. Oberlin is unique among the top LACs because of it’s world-class music conservatory. A couple of hundred students participate in the Double Bachelor’s Degree Program. Not double majors–double BACHELOR’S degrees.

Students in this unusual but popular program go five years and graduate with TWO Bachelor’s degrees. One in Music Performance, the other in the Arts and Sciences major of choice. The five year program skews the data showing graduation rate in four years, because Oberlin does not extract the double degree students from the single degree students, when asked for a four year graduation rate. The true four-year graduation rate is in the mid to high 80s, percentage-wise, which places Oberlin somewhere in the “Outstanding” to “Very Good” categories along with Middlebury, Haverford, Amherst, Wesleyan, Colby and other fine LACs.

hawkette · May 12, 2009, 9:16pm

plainsman,
I deliberately chose the headline “Raises Some Questions,” ie, there may be something going on that needs explanation. You’ve provided that.

BTW, the USNWR number that I reported is not incorrect and I must admit that my personal knowledge of Oberlin’s offerings is low. So, while I love music and have some knowledge of a handful of college music programs, I was not aware of the prevalence of this situation at Oberlin.

Thanks for the explanation and the education about Oberlin’s double degree programs and its impact on their 4-year graduation rate.

hudsonvalley51 · May 12, 2009, 10:01pm

Some folks might have misinterpreted “Raises Some Questions” in a negative light, so I’m glad this got clarified. Other schools where the 4-year grad rate is not an accurate barometer are tech schools which feature a lot of 5-year (often engineering) programs. Or coop schools like Northeastern that basically has a 0% 4-year grad rate.

niftydesign · May 12, 2009, 10:22pm

As a counterpoint to chrissyblu, D was looking at design at UC Davis and they explicitly told her she would have to take summer classes if she wanted to graduate in 4 years because the classes she would need weren’t always available during the school year.

justmytwocents · May 13, 2009, 1:16am

Hawkette, I’m sorry, but your data is wrong/flawed.

I have the latest US Department of Education Graduation Rates Survey/IPEDS Data (are you familiar with IPEDS - the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System?) in front of me (yes, such a thing exists) and your numbers are fairly different. I am not sure where you got your numbers, maybe they are several years old?

I encourage everyone to check out [EdTrust</a> - College Results Online](<a href=“http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/]EdTrust”>http://www.■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■/), the website of the Education Trust, a national non-profit aimed at improving graduation rates k-16 wide. In conjunction with the US DOE, the website allows users to search for graduation data on specific colleges, types of colleges, or even compare dozens of different schools based on this characteristic. You can also search for transfer rates, freshmen retention rates, et cetera.

You should know that nearly all measures of graduation rest on SIX year graduation rates, to account for the fact that some academic programs require a fifth year (or entire institutions in some cases; for example, Georgia Tech).

That said, the top twenty institutions based upon FOUR year graduation rates:

Virginia Intermont College 91.7 VA
Williams College 91.5 MA
Haverford College 91.3 PA
Georgetown University 90.3 DC 
5T. University of Notre Dame 89.9 IN 
5T. Duke University 89.9 NC
Princeton University 89 NJ
Davidson College 88.8 NC
College of the Holy Cross 88.7 MA 
10T. Yale University 88.1 CT 
10T. Boston College 88.1 MA 
10T. Carleton College 88.1 MN
Amherst College 88 MA
Lafayette College 87.8 PA
Middlebury College 87.7 VT
University of Pennsylvania 87.5 PA
Harvard University 87.4 MA
Pomona College 86.9 CA
United States Naval Academy 86.8 MD 
20T. Tufts University 86.5 MA 
20T. Columbia University in the City of New York 86.5 NY

Look how this list changes based upon FIVE year graduation rates

Harvard University 96.5 MA 1,490
Princeton University 95.6 NJ
Williams College 95.5 MA
University of Notre Dame 95.4 IN
Yale University 94.9 CT
Amherst College 94.5 MA
Haverford College 94 PA
Georgetown University 93.5 DC
Middlebury College 93.3 VT
University of Pennsylvania 93.1 PA
Brown University 93 RI
Duke University 92.9 NC
Stanford University 92.5 CA
Carleton College 92.4 MN
Dartmouth College 92.3 NH
16T. Pomona College 92.2 CA 
16T. Northwestern University 92.2 IL 
18T. Columbia University in the City of New York 91.9 NY
18T. Rice University 91.9 TX
Swarthmore College 91.3 PA

And now ranked by SIX year graduation rates, which is “industry standard”

Harvard University 97.9 MA
Princeton University 96.4 NJ
Yale University 96.2 CT 
4T. University of Notre Dame 95.6 IN 
4T. Amherst College 95.6 MA 
4T. Williams College 95.6 MA
Stanford University 95.2 CA 
8T. Georgetown University 94.5 DC 
8T. Simon’s Rock College of Bard 94.5 MA
University of Pennsylvania 94.2 PA 
10T. Haverford College 94 PA 
10T. Middlebury College 94 VT
12T. Dartmouth College 93.9 NH 
12T. Duke University 93.9 NC
12T. Brown University 93.9 RI 
15T. Pomona College 93.5 CA 
15T. Columbia University in the City of New York 93.5 NY
Rice University 93.3 TX
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 93.1 MA
Wellesley College 92.9 MA
Northwestern University 92.8 IL

PUBLIC universities by FOUR year graduation rates (US Naval Academy is the only one to make it into the “Top 20” listed above, but I also sorted just for publics)

United States Naval Academy 86.8 MD
United States Military Academy 84.1 NY
College of William and Mary 83 VA
University of Virginia-Main Campus 82.7 VA
United States Air Force Academy 77.2 CO
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 71.2 NC
University of Mary Washington 71.2 VA
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 70.4 MI
St Mary’s College of Maryland 69.9 MD
Miami University-Oxford 67.6 OH
The College of New Jersey 66.3 NJ
United States Coast Guard Academy 65.4 CT
James Madison University 64.8 VA
Citadel Military College of South Carolina 62.4 SC
SUNY College at Geneseo 61.5 NY
University of California-Berkeley 61.2 CA
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 61 IL
SUNY at Binghamton 60.5 NY
University of Delaware 60.2 DE
University of California-Los Angeles 59.3 CA

PUBLICS by FIVE year graduation rates

University of Virginia-Main Campus 91 VA
College of William and Mary 89.8 VA
United States Naval Academy 87.2 MD
University of California-Los Angeles 86.8 CA
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 84.5 MI
The College of New Jersey 83.1 NJ
University of California-Berkeley 83 CA 1,330
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 82.6 NC
Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus 82.3 PA
University of California-San Diego 81.1 CA
Miami University-Oxford 80.1 OH
St Mary’s College of Maryland 79.5 MD
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 79.2 IL
James Madison University 78.4 VA
SUNY College at Geneseo 78 NY
University of California-Irvine 77.1 CA
University of Mary Washington 76.6 VA
University of Maryland-College Park 76.2 MD
University of California-Davis 75.9 CA
University of Florida 75.7 FL

PUBLICS by SIX year graduation rates

University of Virginia-Main Campus 92 VA
College of William and Mary 91.1 VA
University of California-Los Angeles 89.3 CA
University of California-Berkeley 88.9 CA
United States Naval Academy 87.2 MD
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 86.9 MI
University of California-San Diego 85.9 CA
The College of New Jersey 85.9 NJ
Pennsylvania State University-Main Campus 84.9 PA
United States Military Academy 84.1 NY
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 83.9 NC
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 81.7 IL
Miami University-Oxford 81.3 OH
University of California-Davis 80.9 CA
St Mary’s College of Maryland 80.3 MD
James Madison University 79.8 VA
SUNY College at Geneseo 79.5 NY
University of California-Irvine 79.4 CA
University of Florida 79.4 FL
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University 79.2 VA

The UC system school with the lowest 4-year graduation rate is UC-Riverside (36.6% of students) and the SUNY school with the lowest 4-year graduation rate is SUNY-Alfred (13.3%).

The public university in the country with the lowest 4-year graduation rate is Southern University and A&M College, with a 0.1 % grad rate (not kidding). The private college/university with the lowest 4-year graduation rate is Franklin University in Ohio (2%).

Some other quick fun tidbits:
*Haverford and Yale are tied for the highest freshmen retention rates (99%).

*University of Maryland-University College is the public with the lowest freshmen retention rate (32%).

*The top five schools, by 4 year graduation rate, for WOMEN are, in order, Davidson College (96.1%), Virginia Intermont College (94.3%), Williams (93.5%), Princeton (92.8%), and Duke University (92.1%)

*The top five schools, by 4 year graduation rate, for MEN are, in order, Haverford (91.7%), Amherst (91.5%), Williams (89.8%), the Univ. of Notre Dame (89.6%), and Georgetown (88.7%)

*The top 5 schools for African-American students, by 4 year graduation rates, are (in order) Haverford College (90.9%), Swarthmore College (90%), Wesleyan College (89.1%), Claremont-McKenna College (84.6%), and Harvard (94.5%)

*The top 5 schools for Latino students, by 4 year graduation rates, are (in order) Mount Holyoke College (100%), Grinnell (93.3%), University of Notre Dame (91.2%), Williams College (90.3%), and Duke University (90.1%)

*The top 5 schools for Asian students, by 4 year graduation rates, are (in order) Connecticut College (100%), Dickinson College (100%), Wake Forest University (96.3%), Georgetown (94.6%), and Univ. of Notre Dame (92.9%)

*The top 5 schools for White students, by 4 year graduate rates, are (in order) Williams (92.8%), Princeton (91.8%), Amherst (91.7%), Haverford (91.6%), and Duke (91.4%)

There is also data broken down by race AND gender. So if you can get into any institution, and graduating in four years is your number one priority, it might make more sense if you’re an African-American male to go to Colgate Univ. (83.3% grad rate – tied with Williams for the highest for this group) or if you’re a a White boy to go to Haverford (92.9% - highest for this population).

[[Sorry this post is so long - can you tell I did research on this in grad school?]]

hawkette · May 13, 2009, 9:55am

twocents,
In their CDSs, colleges report data for 4-year graduation, 5-year graduation and 6-year graduation. I think that all are legitimate for comparison. In the data presented earlier, I focused on 4-year data as one of the potential concerns at some public universities is that there is less institutional flexibility which sometimes causes problems for students, eg, not getting access to courses in order to complete a college’s/degree program’s requirements.

As for the universe of schools, my data set was comprised solely of colleges that are ranked in either the USWNR Top 50 national universities or the USNWR Top 25 LACs. I did not note this in my presentation (#15). I regret the oversight.

Re the dataset that I chose for this thread and virtually all others for I post, my objective is to compare schools which have the highest degree of interest on CC. In addition, these are the schools that have the highest incidence of cross-applications and cross-admits. By comparing this universe of schools, it allows the reader to see how a variety of highly ranked and highly different colleges compare on a broad range of statistics.

Finally, it takes a lot of time to gather and organize all of this data and there is a limit to how much time and energy I have. If you or some other poster wants to collect, organize, and present the data for colleges beyond the ones I am posting on, then please be my guest.

barrons · May 13, 2009, 12:14pm

Graduation rates will track closely with the wealth of the students and or the school. Students who are paying most of their own way take longer. Most of them go to publics.

hawkette · May 13, 2009, 12:28pm

barrons,
I’m not sure that the wealth effect plays out quite like this. The reality is that many of the top privates have considerably more money to work with and thus are able to offer aid that is competitive with and sometimes better than the publics. Consider some of the following:

% of Undergrads Getting Financial Aid , Public National Universities

59% , UCSD
59% , UC Davis
57% , U Texas
52% , UC Irvine
50% , UC Berkeley
49% , UC Santa Barbara
48% , U Michigan
48% , Penn State
47% , U Illinois
46% , UCLA
45% , U Florida
38% , U Washington
35% , Georgia Tech
33% , U North Carolina
32% , U Wisconsin
29% , W&M
26% , U Virginia

% of Undergrads Getting Financial Aid , Private National Universities

70% , Case Western
69% , MIT
63% , Rensselaer
59% , Yeshiva
58% , Caltech
55% , Princeton
55% , Brandeis
54% , Harvard
53% , NYU
52% , Columbia
52% , Carnegie Mellon
50% , Dartmouth
50% , U Rochester
49% , Johns Hopkins
48% , U Chicago
47% , Notre Dame
46% , Yale
45% , Brown
45% , Vanderbilt
45% , Tulane
44% , Stanford
43% , Northwestern
43% , Tufts
42% , Duke
42% , Cornell
41% , Boston Coll
41% , Lehigh
40% , Wash U
40% , Georgetown
40% , USC
39% , U Penn
39% , Rice
38% , Emory
31% , Wake Forest

<pre><code> % of OOS Tuition & Fees covered by Avg FA Package , % of IS Tuition & Fees covered by Avg FA Package , Public National Universities

53% ,   173%    ,   UCSD
51% ,   168%    ,   UC Davis
38% ,   121%    ,   U Texas
52% ,   188%    ,   UC Irvine
60% ,   200%    ,   UC Berkeley
55% ,   186%    ,   UC Santa Barbara
25% ,   74% ,   U Michigan
36% ,   65% ,   Penn State
43% ,   97% ,   U Illinois
58% ,   214%    ,   UCLA
58% ,   326%    ,   U Florida
52% ,   176%    ,   U Washington
49% ,   200%    ,   Georgia Tech
52% ,   215%    ,   U North Carolina
44% ,   127%    ,   U Wisconsin
56% ,   178%    ,   U Virginia
44% ,   123%        W&M


% of Tuition & Fees covered by Avg FA Package   ,           Private National Universities

99% ,           Case Western
90% ,           MIT
76% ,           Rensselaer
63% ,           Yeshiva
85% ,           Caltech
94% ,           Princeton
73% ,           Brandeis
103%    ,           Harvard
62% ,           NYU
89% ,           Columbia
65% ,           Carnegie Mellon
96% ,           Dartmouth
82% ,           U Rochester
78% ,           Johns Hopkins
89% ,           U Chicago
84% ,           Notre Dame
98% ,           Yale
82% ,           Brown
99% ,           Vanderbilt
84% ,           Tulane
96% ,           Stanford
76% ,           Northwestern
73% ,           Tufts
82% ,           Duke
95% ,           Cornell
71% ,           Boston Coll
77% ,           Lehigh
79% ,           Wash U
76% ,           Georgetown
88% ,           USC
84% ,           U Penn
93% ,           Rice
75% ,           Emory
75% ,           Wake Forest

</code></pre>

John2698 · May 13, 2009, 12:33pm

Hawkette, your data is very interesting. I particularly like “% of Tuition and Fees covered by Avg FA package.” I would like to get this information on LACs. What is the source of this information? USN&WR?

hudsonvalley51 · May 13, 2009, 12:35pm

EdTrust is a great resource, but its information is also a bit dated.

ellemenope · May 13, 2009, 12:56pm

I think this is a great 1st look statistic. Of course, any individual FA package can be much below or above the tuition and fees. But if I needed lots of financial aid to go to college, I’d be sure to look very closely at the schools that have very high numbers (over 90%) and keep my eyes wide open when it comes to schools with lower numbers.

mdoc · May 13, 2009, 2:32pm

It’d also be interesting to see the composition of those FA packages, specifically how much is loans. I assume loans are considered financial aid by the schools, even if they aren’t considered financial aid by me.

marny1 · May 13, 2009, 4:57pm

you can put all the “facts and figures” down- but if you aren’t knowledgeable about specific schools and programs, you are “unintentionally” spreading falsehoods and manipulating reality. As it’s been said many times- "garbage in–garbage out!!

so the lowest performing 4 year graduation rate at a SUNY is Alfred State at 13.3% as it was listed by one of the posters.
Problem with that “fact” is that Alfred State is a SUNY Technical college, and most of the terminal degrees at Alfred are 2 year Associate Degrees- including an Associate in Occupational Studies in Interior Design, Culinary Arts and Motorsports Technology.

Ommission of fact was used similarly for Oberlin, in which someone explained that many students routinely obtain dual degrees and are in 5 year programs and schools like Northeastern are known for its Co OP Program. So basically alot of the “facts” that are being noted, are totally misleading and used out of context.

I think this thread just gives a voice to the detractors of public education. 
With any analytical ability and understanding the history and the importance of public education on our society, one would realize that Public Education has a much different mission than a private U- as it is much more inclusive and allows many non-traditional and lower income students to pursue college studies. And in many instances, the goal may not be to get a degree- but to obtain knowledge in a particular area to better their lives.

barrons · May 13, 2009, 6:31pm

Either way there are very few people working their way through Harvard or Priinceton. You are either in the half that has parents paying everything or getting lots of aid. The problem comes in that hardly anyone gets into Harvard or Princeton. Now I’d like to know how many independent pay kids are going to NYU or USC and working their way through–those not on the rare full scholarships, etc. At UW a sizable minority of kids from instate are paying their own way–even though in some cases their parents could have made a significant contribution. I don’t know exactly why this is, buy it’s real. According to inhouse studies something over half of UW students are working 20+ hours a week. Many take a lighter class load.

bclintonk · May 13, 2009, 6:58pm

^ Same at Minnesota, barrons. I happen to know the provost. It drives him crazy because Minnesota gets hammered in its U.S. News rankings for this, but every year a substantial fraction of the entering class comes in saying they’re “on the 6-year plan,” meaning they intend to work their way through college with little or no support from their parents. It’s part of our Upper Midwest ethic of hard work and self-reliance, I think. The parents did it back in their day, they’re proud of it, they think it means more to earn your degree if you pay for it yourself instead of having it handed to you, they think it “builds character,” and so there the parents are on the sidelines, actively cheering on junior as he sets out to do the same thing they did. But it’s more expensive now, support from the legislature is weaker so tuition has increased, and wages for unskilled labor have not kept up with the rising cost of public higher education. So 6 years has a way of slipping into 7, or 8. Most do make it through eventually. But the reported 4-, 5-, and 6-year graduation rates look pretty low, and the uninformed, lacking any context for the reported data, take this as an indication of some kind of “problem” with the university. The “problem,” if it is one, is our culture of hard work and self-reliance, things that used to be considered virtues, and still are in this part of the country.

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