Why Colleges Don’t Want To Be Judged By Their Graduation Rates

“This fall, President Obama will release a college-rating system that is likely to include graduation rates as a key measure of institutional success,” The Chronicle of Higher Education reports.

“That worries colleges, which have long complained that the official government figures leave out many successful graduates. The federal rate counts only first-time, full-time students who graduate within a certain time frame.

Look at the Education Department’s first Beginning Postsecondary Students longitudinal study, begun in 2003, and you’ll see several categories of students that the federal rate overlooks. …

Taken together, those limitations mean that millions of potential graduates are left out of the federal government’s official rate. In 2012 only 55 percent of all new enrollees at four-year institutions (including transfer-ins) were first-time, full-time students. More than two million new students weren’t. The numbers were even worse at community colleges, where only 41 percent of new students were first-time, full-time.

The good news is that better data do exist. …

There’s just one thing standing in the way: Congress. Lawmakers have barred the department from creating a unit-record system with information on students who don’t receive federal aid. Unless Congress lifts the ban, the department will have to either rely on the National Student Clearinghouse to aggregate the data or calculate its own rate, based solely on federal grant and loan recipients. And that, unfortunately, would leave many students out.”