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Subpar graduation
rates may be overblown
By Akira Hayakawa
Summer On-line Forty-Niner
Low graduation
rates at Cal State Long Beach and other California State University
campuses may have some people worried, but those numbers may
not tell the whole story, according to several CSULB officials.
It's true that
CSULB has lower graduation rates when compared with University
of California and private research institutions such as Stanford
University. For example, 34.7 percent of entering freshmen
graduated from CSULB within six years while UCLA has 80 percent
for the same conditions, according to each university's newest
catalog.
Vincent Novack,
director of the Department of Institutional Research, said
differences occur because the type of student at CSU campuses
is different from that of other research institutions.
"We are not as
selective as some of these institutions," Novack said. "[These
institutions] take students [who are] the best of the best.
The CSU has reasonable cost, and that also aids accessibility."
Graduation rates
available are tracked in four categories: one-year, four-year,
six-year and eight-year continuation rates. Students who take
more than eight years to graduate are not counted.
Those numbers may
include students who go to school a few years, take a break
for whatever reason, and come back to graduate. For example,
a student who may be in school for only six years substantially
may take more than eight years to actually graduate.
"It totally depends
on individuals to graduate as soon as possible, or to take
their time," CSULB President Robert Maxson said.
Said Novack: "The
problem we have now is [when] students who don't graduate
from here, we don't know what happens to them. They could
drop out for longer than an eight-year period.
"They [may have]
left here and gone to another system or even another CSU [campus].
CSULB loses 20-25 percent of freshmen from the first to second
year. The thing the Institutional Research wants to address
is ... did they graduate somewhere? If they did, I wouldn't
look at that as a failure."
Assessing graduation
rates is complex, and cooperation with other colleges, CSU
campuses and UC schools is necessary to figure out whether
students who left CSULB finish their degrees at other institutions,
Novack said.
"I don't really
think those statistics tell the whole story," he added.
In addition, most
students don't always leave for academic reasons, but for
personal ones. Novack said students are under increasing burden
whose factors include family, work, finance and commuting.
Trends have changed
over the last 20 years, too. A formally traditional college
student -- a white male who was a full-time student, did not
have a job and was economically dependent on his parents --
has become incredibly rare. Nowadays, most students work at
least part time, and many work full time.
Some students transfer
to another institution, which may have a better program suited
for their major. On the other hand, some go to another school
because majors such as graphic arts and film are harder to
enter.
"This is a factory,
[and] our product is education," Novack said. "We all care
very much whether people stay here or the people graduate.
"Graduation, successful
completion, is one measure of our success. Measuring a success
of such a complex thing...is really hard. If someone graduated
from here, you can say the institution has been successful."
Maxson agreed.
"Our mission should
be to provide to the students the education that the students
want," he said. "I think low graduation rates give people
the impression that students are leaving for the wrong reasons."
John Karras, director
of Student Transition and Retention Services, said incoming
students trust the university to help them get a degree, and
thus the university has a responsibility to these students.
"We feel we owe
[it] to them to try to set up an environment here," Karras
said. "We don't want students...to leave Cal State Long Beach
and never graduate [from another school] because that doesn't
benefit [our] institution, [and that] doesn't benefit society."
Therefore, the
university is intensifying efforts to increase its graduation
rate. Some of the efforts include increasing the availability
of services such as tutoring and advising.
"There's a lot
of effort made campus-wide to try to stimulate retention,"
Novack said, "to identify people who might have a problem
based on their academic history, based on their economic situation
or whatever. Academic advisors [try to] identify students
who are academically in danger of dropping out. They try to
reach those students rather than waiting them to visit the
advisors."
Said Maxson: "The
university is working very hard to make sure that students
who want to graduate, desire to graduate in four years, can
graduate. And the way you do that is by offering more courses.
We have improved that dramatically."
It must be noted
that graduation rates at CSULB are comparable to other CSU
campuses that have the same traits: urban, public schools
that have many commuter students and students who have to
work many hours, Karras said.
"The problem of
graduation is national," Karras said. "Only about 50 percent
of students who go to college actually graduate at a national
level. CSULB does not have to measure against UCLA or Stanford,
but against a national level.
"There is a discussion
about how high a level should we have. Should it be 40 percent,
50 percent, 60 percent? Those kind of questions are discussed
right now across the university."
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