<p>[To</a> Raise Completion Rates, States Dig Deeper for Data - College Completion - The Chronicle of Higher Education](<a href=“http://chronicle.com/article/To-Raise-Completion-Rates/131037/]To”>http://chronicle.com/article/To-Raise-Completion-Rates/131037/) </p>
<p>It’s hard to know what to do to raise college graduation rates until there are accurate data on how many students complete college, and where and how.</p>
<p>I have a weak hypothesis borne out of indirect experience: perhaps the students who enroll closer to the beginning of the semester are simply the poorer students, who need that extra 10 days (or 7 days or whatever) to scrape together the money to go to school. A week may not seem like a lot, but my indirect experience is through my younger sister, who many a year has not gotten her financial aid together until the very last minute (we are both first-generation college students, and my parents have been less than interested in helping us get through college. I was fine, but my sister is a less of a go-getter than I am).</p>
<p>So what MN may be doing is simply weeding out the students less likely to graduate because at some point, they don’t get their money together and have to take a semester off, or drop to part-time, or take some time away from school and come back later (or never come back).</p>
<p>edit: nvm, not germane to this article</p>
<p>There is no doubt that being able to pay for college is key to finishing college. </p>
<p>I have feeling the other reason for so many not finishing college is more likely they should have never been there in the first place.</p>