A different sort of ranking

interesteddad
Thu, 19 May 2005 02:22:15 +0000

Yet, schools like Northwester, Cornell, Columbia, Hamilton and Swarthmore that have similar pell grant rates are significantly lower in 4 year grad rates.



I don’t know Hamilton that well, but the other four schools all have signficant engineering programs – a particularly demanding field that tends to throw “x” number of kids for a loop right out of the blocks.

Swat’s grad 4-year rate last year was 86.1%, so I don’t know that it is ‘significantly’ lower than, say, Wellesley at 86.4%. Especially when you consider that it is very tough academically. I don’t have a feel for the numbers, but there is no question that they lose a slug of freshmen and sophmores who either can’t, or don’t care to, work that hard. It’s a difficult place to “just slide by”.

They’ve been averaging about 86% for the last seven years or so, except for a two-year dip in 2001 and 2002 following the euthanasia of the football team. The college worked to arrange transfers for a quite a few members of the team. The most recent USNEWS used the 2001 senior class for 4-year rate. The new Common Data Set uses the 2002 senior class. Both of these year were down about 4% from the average (14 students, or about the number of football “tips” per academic class – likely the kids who transfered out). These two classes also represented the final two recruiting classes with increased numbers of “low-band” football admits in a last-gasp attempt to turn the football program around. The problem with that effort was that Swarthmore doesn’t really offer a “low-band” athlete academic track and doesn’t really have a constituency interested in implementing one.

What I find interesting is that graduation rates have been going through the roof. Back in the 1970s, Swat averaged somewhere under 75% 4-year graduation rate. I suspect that this increase is due primarily to the student support, mentoring services, and safety nets installed along with affirmative action. My impression is that, if you go to all the classes, turn in something for each assignment, and are willing to stick it out, you’ll graduate. I think all of these colleges used to “invite” more students to leave.

Institutional Effectiveness, Research & Assessment :: Swarthmore College;

BTW, I didn’t mean to imply that the Pell Grant explanation applied to Swarthmore. Like most big endowment schools, not many kids are failing to graduate for financial reasons. I do think that factor makes it difficult to compare disparate types of schools (wealthy private vs state u.). It’s not just the Pell Grants, it’s readily available discretionary funds to step in and keep a kid going who has run out of money.