<p>I think the freshman retention rate is very important because it’s a window into how well freshmen are adjusting and finding a positive experience at the school IMO, a freshman retention rate below 90% is a red flag: if 1 in every 10 freshman doesn’t bother to come back, something’s probably amiss. Even a retention rate in the low 90s may be cause for concern.</p>
<p>The four-year graduation rate is potentially misleading, for all the reasons already mentioned and more. At public universities especially, many students attend part-time by design; the schools shouldn’t be punished for accommodating these students. Also note that at many publics tuition is pro-rated for part-time students, so it may be no more expensive to graduate in 6 years than in 4. Some programs are designed as 5-year (or longer) programs; you don’t want to punish a school for offering an engineering coop program or a 3+2 engineering program or an integrated undergrad/medical degree program. Assuming that 4 years to degree is the norm and that every deviation is a failure is simply wrongheaded; it works for most LACS with their relatively simple, standard-issue 4-year curricula, but it just doesn’t reflect the complex realities of undergrad education at major research universities. Also, in some state university systems it’s common to begin at a local, less prestigious branch or a community college and then to transfer to the flagship for the last two years, but the way graduation rates are measured neither the institution at which the student first matriculates nor the school from which that student graduates is credited with that graduate.</p>
<p>Six-year graduation rates are a somewhat better measure, but still far from perfect.</p>