These statistics don’t surprise me in the least. With the cost of college these days, I would expect that there are many students who have to drop out for financial reasons, or take time off or go part time while they work to be able to afford to attend. Add to that the fact that a college degree has become what a high school degree used to be, resulting in students who really don’t belong in college attending, and you have more students who either drop out or take longer to finish their degrees because they need remedial classes or to retake classes. There are also a lot more students going out of state or choosing “dream schools” that they can’t afford, exacerbating the number of students who drop out, go part time or transfer for financial reasons.
The 4 and 6 year graduation rates for the university from which my daughter graduated (in 4 years) are not impressive. However, I didn’t worry about them. I knew that she would be able to get the classes she needed (she had registration priority), I knew we could afford the school and I knew that she was well prepared in high school and not likely to have academic problems. In my mind, that took away most of the issues. Her school accepted a number of low stats students as part of their mission to educate students in the state (public flagship), there were a number of lower socieoeconomic students attending, and there were a lot of OOS students paying pricy OOS tuition - to me that added up to lower graduation rates, but for reasons that really wouldn’t affect my child.