<p>Front page article in today's Post highlightling UW's efforts to improve its lagging four year graduation rate. Obviously I'm not the only one who has taken notice. </p>
<p>Public</a> universities pushing ‘super-seniors’ to graduate in four years - The Washington Post</p>
<p>Nice to see the east coast paying attention to the upper Midwest. Guess our flagships are on their radar.</p>
<p>“Internal data show that the universitys four-year completion rate has risen from 47 percent in 2005 to 56 percent in 2011.”</p>
<p>This is good to see, though there’s no question there should be further improvement. </p>
<p>I’m disappointed to see that poor advising is not one of the reasons for the low rate listed in the article. Peer advisors, especially the ones at SOAR, are absolutely awful, and the professional advisors aren’t usually much better. There’s no effort made to get to know students on an individual level, and the peer advisors oftentimes steer incoming freshman to take classes that make little sense and can sometimes derail a student’s academic career.</p>
<p>If they want to graduate on time, incoming freshman/transfer students have to go above and beyond what should reasonably be expected of them in light of the poor advising situation on campus.</p>
<p>The Post could have written that exact article with my posts here that have been done on the subject. And bad advising is hardly ever reported as a significant reason. Just a fact.
"First, most Wisconsin students don’t take enough classes to finish in four years. The average student amasses 14 credit hours per semester, too few to attain the required 120 in four years. University leaders say the key problem is work: By senior year, most students hold on- or off-campus jobs.</p>
<p>Yup</p>
<p>Second, some academic programs, including majors in engineering and education, are designed to take five years. Although the American college is built on a four-year model, some programs stretch four years into five.</p>
<p>For sure. Due to required work experiences.</p>
<p>Third, budget cuts have led to academic bottlenecks: crushing demand for introductory courses that are graduation requirements for large numbers of students.</p>
<p>“What you hear every single semester is the frustration from kids. Courses fill up,” said Robert Schlaeger, 22, a senior from Milwaukee who is graduating on time.</p>
<p>More myth than reality but it happens. Most complain they can’t get the class when THEY want it–as in after 10 and before 2 and never on fridays.</p>
<p>Wisconsin students voted for a series of tuition increase in 2009, partly to fund 75 new faculty positions.</p>
<p>Last, some students are declaring a second or even a third major, driven by a conviction that graduate schools favor overachievers. Many students take a year or two to choose a major."</p>
<p>Yup, seems like everyone has three majors now.</p>
<p>So thanks to the WAPO and Nova for re-telling a story we already know and discussed.</p>
<p>As I’ve stated before, work/research/club experiences and multiple majors/degrees are the main reason that students go past 4 years at UW-Madison. My D will do her two degrees in 8 semesters and 3 summers. No sour grapes here. I suspect she will be in a good position for gainful employment when she gets out, which is the name of the game.</p>
<h2>“Front page article in today’s Post highlightling UW’s efforts to improve its lagging four year graduation rate. Obviously I’m not the only one who has taken notice.”</h2>
<p>If you actually read the article, you’d see that it talked about similar problems with MOST state flagships, and elaborated on the situations at UT-Austin, Indiana, and Minnesota, among others. From the article:</p>
<p>“Fewer than half of students graduate in four years at 33 of the 50 state flagship schools. The overall four-year graduation rate is 31 percent for public colleges.”</p>
<p>I have been posting on this board literally for years about UW’s need to improve its graduation rate. For all of this time I’ve been poo-poo’d by other posters who have been insisting that this is a non-issue. Well, according to the Washington Post, UW administrators agree with me and not these other posters and are working hard to change things. That language [encouraging four-year graduations] was never part of our culture, said Jocelyn Milner, an associate provost at Wisconsin. A front page article in the Washington Post on an issue that is near and dear to UW administrators, parents, students, and policy makers is something that merits being posted on this board and discussed. It isn’t something that merits the poster being insulted, no matter who he or she is. </p>
<p>To that end, picking up where barrons left off, if it’s largely a “myth” that students can’t get all the classes they need to graduate in four years, then why the need for the Undergraduate Initiative? And if advising has nothing to do with the problem, as a previous poster ponders, then why the student quote in the article that "Everyone tells you, Oh, you have time to figure it out. Actually, you dont?</p>
<p>In short, whose views should count more – current students with contemporaneous experience with UW, or graduates of many decades ago?</p>
<p>It’s no accident that Virginia, North Carolina, Michigan and Berkeley typically top the list of the country’s top flagships, while Wisconsin lags behind. Among other reasons, as this article demonstrates, these schools graduate their students on time. If, as Sally suggests, UW is happy to be in the same company as Indiana and Minnesota, fine. But that’s certainly not where its administrators want to be.</p>
<p>Indiana and Minnesota were mentioned in the Washington Post article. The article put them in the “same company,” not me. And I don’t really care either way. Indiana and Minnesota offer a good education to a lot of students.</p>
<p>In my opinion, UW has worse problems than its sub-par (yet typical, from the sound of it) graduation rates. We have an education-hating governor and legislature that are stripping the university of funding and crippling research. That’s the bigger story in the state right now with regard to UW.</p>
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<p>Well, personally, I consider the Washington Post to be a “national” newspaper, not an east coast paper.</p>
<p>And, besides, the article was written by Daniel de Vise. He is the Post’s “higher education reporter.” He writes about many different issues involving higher education, not necessarily Washington higher education.</p>
<p>You are getting insulted because you have made this argument upteem times and we are sick of you and your constant repetitive arguments. Report away. We are sick of your harrassment. The answers have been made. The article cited the same things you have been told. Same for availability of needed classes. Demand changes all the time from computers one year to econ the next. You can’t quickly add people or fire them just due to demand shifts. You adjust over time. Enough.</p>
<p>And the answers are not from oldies but from a recent UW study of the matter that you won’t read.</p>
<p><a href=“http://apa.wisc.edu/JLM/TTD2006Sept_Cover_plus_Study.pdf[/url]”>http://apa.wisc.edu/JLM/TTD2006Sept_Cover_plus_Study.pdf</a></p>
<p>Oh, I see, so now it’s not a “myth” but a reality resulting from there being different needs in different years that are difficult to predict? And, in this regard, UW is different than the top flagships how, exactly? They don’t have different demands in different years? Everything is entirely predictable at Virginia, North Carolina, Berkeley, Michigan, Illinois, etc. while chaos reigns in Madison?</p>
<p>By the way, I’m not “making an argument.” I’m stating a fact that I think parents footing the bill will want to consider: half of UW undergraduates do not finish in four years.</p>
<p>25 Public Universities with Best Four-Year Grad Rates [Where’s Waldo?]</p>
<p>United States Naval Academy 86%
University of Virginia 85%
College of William and Mary 82%
United Air Force Academy 79%
United State Military Academy 76%
United State Coast Guard Academy 75%
University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill 73%
University of Michigan, Ann Arbor 70%
University of Mary Washington 70%
James Madison University 68%
Miami University (OH) 68%
The College of New Jersey 68%
St. Mary’s College of Maryland 67%
University of Delaware 67%
UCLA 65%
University of California, Berkeley 64%
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign 64%
SUNY at Binghamton, NY 64%
United State Merchant Marines 64%
University of Maryland-College Park 63%
University of California, Irvine 60%
Penn State University-Main Campus 60%
Citadel Military College of South Carolina 59%
Virginia Military Institute 59%
SUNY at Geneseo, NY 58%</p>
<p>Certainly, this argument is becoming tiresome. The horse has been flogged lifeless, moreover by someone who never attended nor has a child that attended. So take that for what it’s worth.</p>
<p>Every nuance of the 4-year graduation rate at UW-Madison has been dissected ad nauseum, thanks to the OP. So…any potential Badger parent should be well aware that a directionless child might well reside in Madison’s clutches well beyond that eighth semester, staggering aimlessly down State Street between coffeehouses, or at least as long as Mommy & Daddy’s money holds out.</p>
<p>Seriously, folks, if a totally impersonal stat such as this is enough to keep a student from at least keeping a Top 50 institution like Wisconsin in the college selection equation, then that kid wasn’t much of a Badger to begin with.</p>
<p>Excuse me, how does the fact that I didn’t attend UW make me less qualified to cite the FACT that it has a low graduation rate? And how come UW administrators care about this FACT but anonymous posters do not?</p>
<p>Your last sentence is both ludicrous AND spot on. Students, if not caring about graduating on time is your thing, then you’re a true Badger!</p>
<p>You say: As I’ve stated before, work/research/club experiences and multiple majors/degrees are the main reason that students go past 4 years at UW-Madison. Don’t students at other colleges work, do research, join clubs and have joint degrees too? Show me the beef!</p>
<p>Because–and I’m being totally serious here–you don’t even begin to understand how UW-Madison changes students’ lives. I’m sure other schools, maybe even some with higher 4-year graduation rates, can do the same thing. But Madison is special, and I’ve seen a lot of colleges & college towns over the years.</p>
<p>All I know is what it’s done for my kid. Case closed.</p>
<p>Respectfully, that is the most about-face response that I’ve ever heard. First, you tell me that I’m in no position to comment on UW because I didn’t go there, but you, on the other hand, ARE in a position to compare UW to all of the other schools that we’ve been discussing – and to judge UW more “special” – even though you have no experience and no knowledge about any of them?</p>
<p>So how does this work, then – we make up the rules as we go along?</p>
<p>I don’t understand how a 64% rate at UC Berkeley and a 70% rate at Michigan are considered good, but 56% is horrible. They all seem to suck. And I wonder how many students are forced to spend $ and time in summer school in order to graduate in four years at the schools with the higher rates. Four years, but more semesters. Extra tuition, extra housing costs, but that stat stays high!</p>
<p>There is a HUGE difference between 56 percent and 70 percent at UW. With a freshman class of 6000, this translates into 4200 graduating in four years instead of 3360. UW administrators would kill to reach this number, even if the UW boosters on this board wouldn’t.</p>
<p>Then it would stand to reason that a university with an 85-percent four-year graduation rate would kill to have its own 14-point boost.</p>
<p>Apart from the expense issue (which is HUGE for many people, including myself–don’t get me wrong), how long it takes to graduate does not necessarily correlate to better or worse outcomes in the long term. If kids are goofing off and staying in school because they can’t face the “real” world, it MIGHT suggest lack of commitment to the education they are receiving. But if they change majors midway through, study abroad, or do other things that cost them some time, they will probably still be in as good a place as any when they graduate.</p>
<p>Sally, you don’t understand. See the 14 point spread from 56 to 70 is “HUGE” because it’s referring to UW Madison. However, if it’s a 16 point spread from 70 to 86, not so much.</p>
<p>Ah. Thanks for clarifying.</p>