America’s declining college graduation rates have been the subject of many a political speech or hearing lately.  President Obama set a long term goal for his administration to restore America’s prominence in the percentage of its citizens with college degrees.  When you examine the research literature regarding student attrition, persistence, or graduation rates, there are thousands of publications and numerous dissertations written about some aspect of those topics.

John Thelin is a research professor in the Department of Educational Policy Studies and Evaluation at the College of Education at the University of Kentucky.  He also authored A History of American Higher Education.  The American Enterprise Institute (AEI) recently sponsored a working paper (#2010-01) authored by Thelin entitled The Attrition Tradition in American Higher Education:  Connecting Past and Present.  Thelin’s research documents that attrition in higher education has been a problem since the early 1900’s, but that it has only been the focus of research, discussion, and improvement efforts for the past 30 years.  He cites several recent publications, AEI publication Diplomas and Dropouts:  Which Colleges Actually Graduate Their Students (and Which Don’t) and a publication of The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, Crossing the Finish Line: Completing College and America’s Public Universities, which both deliver distressing news about college graduation rates.  The first publication indicates that graduation rates are not entirely a function of the selectivity of admissions by the school and the type of institution.  The second publication focuses on the 20-year decline in state university graduation rates noting that few state universities graduate more than 65 percent of their students in six years.

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I recently read an article related to the “unprecedented” budget cuts facing the LSU System.  System President John Lombardi warned the Chancellors of the various campuses that the system is looking at a 23.28 percent cut across the board unless the projected state budget for 2011-2012 changes.  A primary reason for the heightened focus is the expiration of the Stimulus Act funding for higher education that provided nearly $300 million to the state colleges and universities in Louisiana alone.  According to the System’s press release, the System’s colleges and universities had already absorbed $150 million in cuts over the previous two years.  In the past, some of those cuts have been absorbed by tuition increases, but proposed state tuition increases must be approved by Louisiana’s legislature – a prospect that becomes unpredictable due to the current political environment.  Louisiana’s situation is not unique; their press release happened to be readily at hand, but there are equally challenging circumstances being dealt with by many state legislatures throughout America.
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The National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education “promotes public policies that enhance Americans’ opportunities to pursue and achieve high-quality education and training beyond high school.”  The organization also “prepares action-oriented analyses of pressing policy issues facing the states and the nation regarding opportunity and achievement in higher education-including two- and four-year, public and private, for-profit and nonprofit institutions.”  I have cited their Measuring Up reports in previous blog postings as well as utilized some of their published data in my research.  The next, and possibly last, Measuring Up report may be issued this fall or early next year. Read the rest of this entry »

The global economic downturn has had a profound impact on nearly all industries.  Higher education is no exception.  As students struggle to find affordable options for continuing their educations, institutions of higher education have found it increasingly difficult to conduct “business as usual” in the face of shrinking government funding, dwindling endowments, and increasing enrollments.  Read the rest of this entry »

In December, I wrote a post about why the frequency of my writing slowed and would continue to slow.  The explanation was simple:  I had entered a doctoral program and was engaged in the final writing stage of my dissertation.  I am pleased to say that I satisfactorily completed all the requirements for my doctoral program at the University of Pennsylvania including defending my dissertation.  Now that I have had a couple of weeks to savor the accomplishment, I am ready to resume some of my “free time” activities that I postponed or slowed in order to go back to school and earn my doctoral degree.  As I begin to resume blog posts, I thought I would share my reflections on my area of studies.

When I completed my MBA from Tulane’s Freeman School of Business in 1978, I thought I had completed all of my formal academic studies.  After graduation from Tulane, I sat for and passed the CPA (Certified Public Accountant) exam, the CMA (Certified Management Accountant), and the Fellow exam for the Healthcare Financial Management Association.  Maintaining those certifications required annual continuing education hours, but not academic credits.  Usually, I could earn 40 hours of credit per year by attending a couple of two day seminars along with a single day seminar.

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I recently had the chance to read a research report titled “With Their Whole Lives Ahead of Them,” published by Public Agenda with financial support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.  The authors of the report surveyed over 600 young adults between the ages of 22 and 30.  The purpose of the survey was to compare the answers of students who dropped out of college to the answers of students who graduated within the three year (for community colleges) or six year (for four-year colleges) standards as measured by the U.S. Department of Education.  Jean Johnson and Jon Rochkind, along with Amber Ott and Samantha DuPont, wanted to validate the reasons why students depart from colleges before graduating and see if the students themselves offered reasons different than many of the recent research studies.

The authors point out that according to the U.S. Department of Education, only 20 percent of community college students graduate within three years and only 40 percent of four year college students graduate within six years.  In fact, only 27 percent of college students attend the traditional residential college that most people envision as the idyllic college environment.  Even more telling of the changes in college student profiles, 45 percent of students attending four year colleges reported working more than 20 hours per week and 60 percent of students attending two year colleges reported working more than 20 hours per week.

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