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Unconscionable waste
As my colleague David Azerrad observes, the crisis in graduation rates continues. And beneath the depressing 57 percent national six-year graduation rate is another terrifyingly weak result: Of first-time, full-time baccalaureate bound American undergraduates, only 36 percent finish their baccalaureate degrees in four years at the institutions where they started.
Not only are such abysmally low rates unacceptable, they also don't look good in the eyes of the world. The way the Organization of Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) views things, America is in last place for college completion, though it spends more than any other OECD nation. President Obama has voiced concern about these pathetic results, but we need to hear the urgency in the voices of college and university presidents and their recognition that high standards and high completion rates are their top priorities.
Schools like Cal State Long Beach have beaten all the odds and boosted their completion rates as their student demographics grow more challenging. There are K-12 No Excuses schools that succeed in the face of challenge. Colleges need to stop their "Race to the Bottom" by masking their miserable graduation rates behind "peer average." Trustees, put some faces on the numbers: the students who took loans and put their financial future and pride on the line and will leave with nothing but debt. Be relentless on this issue. Students need your help, the nation needs your help.
Posted by Michael Poliakoff on April 09, 2010 at April 9, 2010 05:52 PM
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