The "6 year" graduation rate

tk21769
Tue, 15 Sep 2015 09:01:22 +0000

@tk21769 how did you select those colleges?

I went to the “all colleges” list on the Kiplinger’s “best values” site, click-sorted on column 6, then looked down from the top for colleges that seem to have solid engineering programs yet high graduation rates (>= 80%). I tossed in a couple of LACs with relatively low graduation rates (and no engineering, of course) for comparison, as well as a few highly-regarded public universities (which have lower 4y graduation rates but also lower percentages of engineering majors than some of the higher-ranked schools).

For some reason, the Air Force Academy doesn’t seem to be on the Kiplinger’s list.

But the point is, it’s fairly easy to identify colleges that have high 4y graduation rates despite relatively high percentages of engineering majors (as well as colleges with lower 4y graduation rates despite lower numbers of engineering majors). So I don’t think the percentage of engineering majors easily explains differences in 4y graduation rates (although it might be a factor in some cases).