A different sort of ranking

carolyn
Thu, 19 May 2005 00:33:37 +0000

ID - the issue to me isn’t 4 year, 5 year or 6 year graduation rates. It’s how MANY actually graduate at all. I used 4 year because that is the cultural expectation for graduation, but if we looked at 6 year rates, the results would still be similar. And, certainly in Wobegon college all students would have 4 year full scholarships. :)

Regarding Pell grants. I looked up the numbers for the schools on the two lists – Amherst, Haverford and Wellesley all have over 10% pell grants, relatively high for private schools. All are in the top ten for 4 year grad rates. Yet, schools like Northwester, Cornell, Columbia, Hamilton and Swarthmore that have similar pell grant rates are significantly lower in 4 year grad rates. Additionally, many schools, such as U of Penn. are significantly lower in pell grants yet are not in the top 10.

The story is the same in publics - no real correlation in the pell grants and graduation rates. SUNY Binghamton makes the top 10 and has 31.9 percent pell grants. UCB and UCLA have similar numbers of pell grants yet aren’t anywhere near the top ten. And, many publics have lower numbers of pell grants than these three schools yet are not any better in terms of graduation rates.

So, I do not see the direct correlation between pell grants and graduation rates that Mini and Blue would like to believe is there.