Diplomas and Dropouts - Which Colleges Actually Graduate Their Students (and Which Do

[mafool]

I am reminded:
"Lies, damned lies, and statistics."

[sakky]

But that has to be weighed against the downsides of rejecting students who would have succeeded, which is a necessary consequence of tightening admissions criteria.

Those students aren't barred from college completely. They would simply be barred from the school in question. They can still go to a (presumably) lower-ranked school that admits them, or, in extremis, a community college or open-enrollment extension program, which have the ancillary benefit of being relatively cheap. Students would then be more optimally matched to a school at which they are likely to succeed. It's far better to graduate from San Jose State than to flunk out of Berkeley.

Colleges should hedge their chances, but they cannot do this without keeping the pay-offs in mind. It seems that the pay-offs of a successful college education are far greater than the pay-offs of averting a failed one. Let's take as an example a school with a 30% graduation rate, which I'm sure many in this thread find horrifying. The average drop-out can expect to lose, say, $50k in tuition and the opportunity cost of working over 2 years. But then let's say the average graduate can expect to increase his lifetime earnings by $200k. Then it seems perfectly acceptable for two students to drop-out for every student who graduates. In fact, it takes four drop-outs to balance the positive of one graduate, so it would actually be prudent for the school to keep lowering their admissions criteria until their graduation rate reaches 20%. We should leave the doors open wider!

Yet not every student would have an equal 30% chance of graduating. Some students are stronger than others. A statistical analysis would show that some students would be predicted to have over a 90% chance of graduating, whereas other students would have less than a 5% chance, and it is precisely the latter who you should not admit. I think we can all agree that when the odds of graduation are less than 1 in 20, I think it's reasonable not to admit that student.

Granted, we can argue about where exactly that cutoff line should be drawn. Yet there must be a line somewhere.

I think rigorous and tough programs should also be respected as well, even if their rigor is too much for certain members for their class.

MIT has arguably the most rigorous program in the country, yet still graduates well over 90% of its students. MIT institutes stringent admissions policies that rejects the vast majority of people who wouldn't be able to graduate.

[newmassdad]

So, ah, um, Sakky, where is the evidence that graduation is the only satisfactory pay-off?

In order for any of your arguments to make sense one must make the assumption that anything short of graduation is a waste of time/resources/etc.

But that is an assumption, hardly proven. You may argue that some studies have shown that college graduates do better than those that did not graduate. But that is an apples/oranges comparison.

I politely lob the ball into your court.

[blossom]

Sakky, MIT also has massive programs in place to flag "at risk" students and get them back on track. Professors send "fail-mail" early in the semester to kids whose performance suggests that they're spiraling downwards. TA's aggressively seek out kids who perform below the mean on midterms or problem sets to get them to come in for tutoring or to join a study group. MIT administers its own placement tests during orientation and then assigns students to the appropriate level of the course- not relying on AP scores or HS teacher recomendations that "this student is the best physics kid in our town".

I am amazed at many of the parents here who post sad stories of kids who discover after finals that they've been put on academic probation, won't graduate in time, have lost their merit scholarship, etc. In some cases, the kid is in denial- there have been faculty members and deans who have tried to get the kid some support and help. But in others- it really does come as a surprise. Kid can be chugging along and discover after the fact that he or she isn't going to get credit for all or part of the semester, will have to repeat a course, won't be able to fulfill the requirements of the major, etc.

So I don't know that MIT's admissions officers are any more prescient than other schools. Kids can fall off the the train anywhere. But I think the school does a better job of dragging the kid in for help when the signs suggest that the kid is struggling.

[sakky]

So, ah, um, Sakky, where is the evidence that graduation is the only satisfactory pay-off?

In order for any of your arguments to make sense one must make the assumption that anything short of graduation is a waste of time/resources/etc.

I never said it was the only payoff. But I think it is hardly controversial that most (probably all) entering college students are actually trying to graduate. I doubt that many enter college with the aim of not graduating.

The relevant issue is also not a matter of weighing whether somebody won't ever graduate at all, but whether you will graduate from a particular school. Many, probably most, students who don't graduate from one school could have probably indeed graduated if they had simply gone to another, easier and/or more financially supportive school.

Nor am I asking for everybody to graduate. No school has a 100% graduation rate, nor am I expecting any of them to do so. In particular, I have no problem whatsoever with those students who voluntarily drop out because they find something more interesting to do, and every school has some such students.

The real issue regards those students who have to leave involuntarily due to problems, whether financial, academic, or otherwise. Which then means that the real choice most students is between a school where you might have problems such that you won't graduate vs. a different school where you would have. Like I said, I would contend that it is better to graduate from SJ State than to flunk out of Berkeley.

But that is an assumption, hardly proven. You may argue that some studies have shown that college graduates do better than those that did not graduate. But that is an apples/oranges comparison.

I don't even have to invoke those studies. I just simply have to point to the general rule that, other than certain fields such as entertainment and entrepreneurship, in order to secure a decent job, you basically need a college degree. The sad fact is that most decent employers will demand that you have a degree if you want an interview. It doesn't really matter where you got the degree, all that matters is that you have a degree. If you lack one, they're not going to care why. They're not going to see that while you flunked out of Berkeley, you could have graduated from SJ State had you chosen that school. All they're going to see is that you don't have a degree, which means that they won't even give you the interview.

Personally speaking, I think that socially constructed rule regarding employment interviews is the real problem. Companies should not be placing such a high emphasis on degrees, especially for jobs in which you don't really need a degree. But what can I say? Like it or not, it is what it is. Hence, given that you are going to be judged by employers according to whether you have a degree or not, it behooves you to get one.

Sakky, MIT also has massive programs in place to flag "at risk" students and get them back on track. Professors send "fail-mail" early in the semester to kids whose performance suggests that they're spiraling downwards. TA's aggressively seek out kids who perform below the mean on midterms or problem sets to get them to come in for tutoring or to join a study group. MIT administers its own placement tests during orientation and then assigns students to the appropriate level of the course- not relying on AP scores or HS teacher recomendations that "this student is the best physics kid in our town".

I've supported this strategy also.

But let's be honest - and a point to which you have alluded yourself - a lot of schools can't or won't provide that level of support. Whether it's due to a lack of resources or to a general callousness of the school, I cannot say. But regardless, the fact remains that MIT is able to graduate an impressive percentage of its students despite a highly rigorous curriculum.

If a school can't or won't provide sufficient support for students in trouble, then the next best option is to not admit those students in the first place. After all, why do you want to place those students in jeopardy? Who benefits from that? If you have strong reason to believe that somebody is not going to do well at your school, then the best thing to do for everybody involved is to not admit him so that he can go elsewhere where he will do well. Otherwise, you're just setting people up for failure.

[blossom]

Sakky, I just think as a practical matter, it is hard to look at two pools of students (or even individual students) and predict who will fail and who will make it. Especially at "hard to get into" schools like the Reeds, MIT's, Berkeley's of the world. Since a certain level of achievement is required to make it into the "admittable" pool, it is hard to parse the nuances of a kids background and predict which kids will stay the course.

Family income- a predictor for sure. Kids with shaky finances at home are more likely to drop out, whether consciously or "just for a while to help out" and never go back. Inconsistent HS performance- also a predictor, mitigated by all the kids that adcoms know who have been stellar performers once they got to college, either because they were late bloomers, bored stiff in HS, unhappy at home, or discovered their passion intellectually once they showed up in college and got turned on. Kids who work more than 15 hours a week (but do you not accept kids who are on the "self-help" plan? and turn your institution into a country club?)

Agree that the very well-funded schools do a much better job of supporting kids who get in, and try their hardest to make sure that each of those kids actually gets a degree. I also think from watching friends kids struggle at a variety of institutions that campus culture really matters in this regard. At MIT failure is seen as a necessary ingredient to success. Professors talk readily of the 49 different hypotheses that failed spectacularly in the lab in order to get to the 50th, brilliant payout.

Grad students share their own sob stories. Dissertation topic rejected 20 times until the advisor agreed it was a PhD worthy subject. Everyone knows a physics professor who claims to have flunked HS calculus the first time. And so failure is part of the culture- all successful people have learned to get back on the horse when they fall off-- and people who perservere through failure are lauded throughout scientific history.

Not so at every campus, where kids take classes in their comfort zone to keep their gpa's high, where needing help is seen as a weakness, where going to office hours is "for losers", and where needing support from an academic dean is tantamount to admitting you shouldn't be in college. I sat through several presentations during the Adcom show and tells at different U's where the attitude was, "if you get here and don't belong you'll figure that out soon enough... but we rarely make mistakes". That was a turn-off for me. At a couple of places (MIT included) the attitude was, "everyone here finds something they're not good at and has to struggle. We work hard to help you up that learning curve". More like real life in my opinion. Even in the ivory tower, someone's got to be at the bottom of the class.

[jonri]

I haven't read the whole thread, but one reason records aren't wiped out is that the federal government limits the amount of money you can borrow for an UG education. If you attend college #1 and flunk out, you've still used up some of your eligibility. College 2 is less likely to admit you if you need fin aid because it knows that you won't be able to borrow as much from the feds. That means you're less likely to graduate if you and/or your parents can't foot the entire bill OR college #2 will have to use more of its own resources to make it financially feasible for you to attend.

[Soli]

Going to University of Minnesota in the fall as a freshman and I am kind of suprised to see only a 63% graduation rate. I hope I do not become one of the 37% to not graduate.

[mafool]

Soli:that is entirely up to you!

[psych_]

Soli:that is entirely up to you!

No, it's not--there are plenty of things that may occur that are completely outside of the student's control--though I sincerely hope those things don't happen to Soli or anything else.

[mafool]

psych- my point is that the fact that others at Soli's prospective school don't graduate does not have to have any predictive effect. .

[epiphany]

Family income- a predictor for sure. Kids with shaky finances at home are more likely to drop out, whether consciously or "just for a while to help out" and never go back.

Where are the statistical studies comparing closely similar offers of financial aid, combined with family income, combined with rigor of that college's standards, combined with the material (independent drive + previous academic achievement/ability) which together verify the above statement.

In my experience/observation as educator (no more statistical in its foundation than the parental suppositions floating around here), it is at the lower-level colleges with comparatively easy admission standards -- such as "state"-level & titled publics (non-flagships) which are not also scientific/technical, and such as community colleges -- where the factor of family income is a major determiner of retention rate/graduation rate. Note that the student bodies in these institutions are far more likely to include already-employed and soon-to-be 20+ hr./week-employed students than more rigorous U's and colleges. It makes sense in those environments that the motivation to keep working/work more will compete with the relative "luxury" of an academic lifestyle, esp. when family circumstances loom large. "Working your way (substantially) through college" is far more of the expected norm & culture in these schools than at places like Berkeley, MIT, Stanford, & the Ivies. I do know a student at MIT who worked a huge amount as an undergraduate, but it was exhausting, & the FA policies, combined with her midde class family income, did not allow her options that she might have had at other institutions. She had excellent college acceptances, but none of them would have provided significantly more non-loan aid than MIT did, for her mid-level family income. And she really wanted MIT.

[newmassdad]

any, probably most, students who don't graduate from one school could have probably indeed graduated if they had simply gone to another, easier and/or more financially supportive school.

On this point we disagree. I politely suggest that the same factors that lead a kid to drop out of one school will affect that kid's performance at any school. For your statement to be true, difficult colleges would need to accept kids who are not prepared/able to handle the workload. But everything we know says this is not true.

The sad fact is that most decent employers will demand that you have a degree if you want an interview. It doesn't really matter where you got the degree, all that matters is that you have a degree. If you lack one, they're not going to care why.

This perception is widely held, often stated and seldom true. The folks that "screen" resumes and apply such black and white rules are never the folks that make the hiring decisions. Anyone with any job seeking savvy knows to avoid these screeners. Real world hiring depends far more on skills and accomplishments than credentials. (a college degree is a credential). There are far too many leaders in many areas who don't have the requisite degree (such as Harry Levin at Harvard, arguably the most accomplished scholar of modernism and comparative literature at Harvard in several generations, who did not even have a Ph.D.!) that it is not worth recounting here. (try Bill Gates as another!).

It is important to keep in mind that many of the same factors that lead to success in college (and that success includes graduating) are the same factors that lead to success in the work place. So to posit that the degree itself is the key factor is just not accurate.

(ball crosses over the net into the other side of the court. )

[vossron]

Another widely held view is that there are so many and varied applicants with a degree that employers don't need to consider those without one, who have not shown the perseverance to earn one.

[blossom]

Newmassdad- You're right in some areas and wrong in others. I am not aware of any medical school that admits people without a BA or BS. But I'm happy to stand corrected if you know of any. Although there are states where you can practice Law if you pass the bar but haven't graduated from law school, I am not aware of any law schools that accept students without an undergrad degree. And so forth.

So while there are many occupations (sales and sales management, some areas of finance such as trading operations, media/entertainment, etc. where you don't need a college degree to advance, it is progressively harder to get that first job in those occupations without the degree. Possible? absolutely.

RE: avoiding the screeners- It would be hard to get hired at GE or Procter & Gamble or Pepsico or Merck or Northwestern Mutual for a job which requires a degree (at least on paper) if you don't have one. Is it fair? No. Is it reality? Yes. You can be the world's greatest networker in the world, but companies that employ 50,000 people and upwards have processes in place-- not to discrminate against "diamonds in the rough" but to ensure consistency in standards and practices. And risk management for employment lawsuits.

Many consumer products companies have senior folks in the sales mangement ranks who were hired in the '70's. They have military experience and maybe a year or two of college. But the trainees they hire for management positions are college graduates, and even they concede that it would be too hard today to try and pick through a pile of HS grads and determine which ones are the slackers, which ones are the grade A blue chip hard workers with a lot of drive, and which ones are just the average Joes. So it's much more efficient to require a college degree... any degree.... just to help narrow the pool.