A new study by UCLA faculty shows that national college
graduation rates are declining and undergraduate students are
taking longer to complete their degrees.
Researchers from the Higher Education Research Institute
compiled data from 262 colleges and universities across the
country, finding that 36.4 percent of students who enrolled in fall
1994 graduated in four years. This represents a significant drop
from 39.9 percent 10 years earlier and 46.7 percent in the late
1960s.
UCLA, however, is exhibiting a different trend. According to the
Office of Academic Planning and Budget, 40 percent of incoming
freshmen in 1994 graduated in four years, while 24 percent finished
in four years a decade earlier.
Despite lower four-year graduation rates nationally, the study
found that many students take an extra year or two to complete
their degrees with 58.8 percent of students finishing in six
years.
“Six years appears to be the norm,” said study
co-author Leticia Oseguera, a research analyst with the Institute
and a fourth-year education graduate student.
Jessica Lennon, a fourth-year psychobiology and physiological
science student, plans to graduate in five years.
Lennon, who is also minoring in French, said that requirements
designed to help students graduate earlier almost prevented her
from being able to complete her two majors and her minor.
“For science people especially, it makes it really hard to
get multiple majors,” Lennon said.
Judith Smith, newly appointed interim executive dean of the
College of Letters & Science, explains that if students stay
more than four years, they prevent admittance of freshmen.
“We care deeply that we provide access to students who
want to come to UCLA … so we make sure students graduate (on
time),” Smith said.
The study also focused on various factors contributing to
retention rates.
“Differences continue to persist by institution type, by
gender and by ethnic group,” Oseguera said.
Private schools exhibited four-year graduation rates that were
over 40 percent higher than public schools ““ 69.1 percent and
24.3 percent respectively.
Four-year retention rates among men were slightly lower than
women’s rates at 32.6 percent of men versus 39.7 percent of
women.
The study also found that Asian American and white
students’ four-year completion rates were higher than those
of African American and Mexican American students, ranging from a
high of 38.8 percent for Asian American students to a low of 21.3
percent for Mexican Americans.
Another factor ““ “academic preparedness”
““ had a large impact on graduation rates. Of students who
maintained A or A-minus averages in high school, 58.2 percent
graduated in four years while only 8 percent of C-average students
finished in that time frame.
Four-year graduation rates for students who scored a 1300 or
above on their SATs averaged 68.9 percent. Only 7.8 percent of
students who scored below 800 finished in four years.
Oseguera, who coordinated the study with Institute director
Alexander Astin, explained that comparing graduation rates at
different institutions can be misleading without knowing how
academically prepared incoming students are.
For example, two institutions with 60 percent graduation rates
may appear equally successful with student retention. Based on
students’ academic preparedness, however, the expected rates
for the two institutions are 50 percent and 70 percent
respectively. Thus the school with a 50 percent expected rate is
doing a much better job retaining students since more students are
graduating in four years than expected.
“The bottom line is that we really have to be looking at
the types of students these institutions enroll,” Oseguera
said.
Based on this information, researchers discerned that public
schools had four-year graduation rates that were 11 to 15 percent
below their expected rates while private schools had retention
rates 2 to 6 percent higher than expected.
With reports from Jamie Hsiung, Daily Bruin Staff.