Graduation statistics remind me of divorce statistics. The whole half of all marriages end in divorce is complete bogus, but there really aren’t too many “good” ways to calculate divorce rates since the period of marriage may easily be decades- much too long for a demographer to cover in, say, a cohort study.
This is the problem with graduation statistics, too (as others have pointed out). And, honestly, to me it entrenches the narrative that one must get a degree within X years- which is harmful for a number of reasons (based on personal experience with friends who are still working on their degrees at 25, 26, 27 and feel like failures because of that).
That said, you will never hear me argue that there aren’t serious problems with our higher ed system that stack the chips against poor students, rural students, students with families, etc. This is a very, very significant problem and I know that politicians need numbers in order to do anything so I understand the point of these studies. I just think it’s a double-edged sword 