Best State University?

hoedown
Thu, 01 Sep 2005 10:36:07 +0000

“UVa graduates over 92% of of its students” [ergo] Maybe its too easy.



Could someone, anyone, on this forum explain to me why, where, and when people got so wedded to the idea that the inverse of the graduation rate is the “failed out because the classes were too hard” rate?

Well, for the record, it isn’t. Making inferences about rigor from a college’s graduation rate is foolhardy indeed.

This isn’t the first time I’ve seen people assume that all nongraduates were dropouts, or that all nongraduates/transfers left because of too much challenge (and, conversely, that a high success rate means they grade easy). I have seen no respectable research anywhere to support such an idea, and common sense doesn’t support it, either. Hence my exasperation. What is the source of this strange idea?