In the most recent Eastern Echo comes “Duncan, Biden Talk Affordability.” Basically, it’s a report about some kind of teleconference Secretary of Education Arne Duncan and Vice President Joseph Biden building on Obama’s education speech. Here’s a quote:
“I want to commend the leadership of Eastern Michigan University for keeping costs down and putting students first, and fortunately, I hear stories like that all over the country,” Duncan said referring to EMU’s 0-0-0 initiative and its 2011-12 academic year 3.65 tuition increase.
“If universities are doing creative things [to keep costs down], we want to not just recognize it, but incentivize it.”
For universities such as EMU that try to make college affordable, Biden said they might qualify for the White House’s incentive plan called the “Race to the Top: College Affordability and Completion.” Through this “fair formula” plan, the administration said $1 billion would be allocated to institutions that keep costs low.
You know, one way the Obama administration could have “incentivized” universities doing creative things was to have the president give a high-profile, national speech at such a university. I mean instead of that school with the good football team.
And while a billion here and a billion there eventually adds up to real money, the fact is $1 billion as an incentive to all of higher education isn’t really much, especially if it is spread about the hundreds of colleges and universities in this country.
It’s nice that the Secretary of Education has praise for EMU. Read on, and you’ll see that later in the article, VP Biden is quoted as saying that there’s a problem with colleges & universities that have exceedingly high attrition rates. He does not not there single out EMU, but our attrition rate for the first year students who start their college education here is about 60% within 6 years. We’re not the lowest, but we should be doing better — and the sources of funding for higher education, the state & federal governments, are not going to continue funding what looks like failure. Our 6 year graduation rate has basically been stagnant for 30 or so years.
This is true, but it’s worth looking carefully at what Biden said there. He said “Either they’re enrolling people who aren’t qualified in the first place and taking their early money or they don’t have a system by which they can encourage students to stay and help them get through.” I think he’s right and I think that the main reason why places like EMU have a lower graduation rate than places like U of M is because we are a less selective/opportunity-granting university. And actually, there are lots of places like EMU in that sense.
In any event, if the Feds and the state governments really force this issue of graduation rates, then places like EMU (and Wayne State, CMU, WMU, etc., etc.) will have to themselves become more selective, which will in turn have the effect of actually turning people away from college. I can appreciate the need to increase graduation rates, but I don’t see how we increase them by telling potential students we’re not going to let them in.
0-0-0% may look good on the surface from an outside perspective (maybe it’s the appearance that matters most to the suits) but what about the fallout at the other end, poorer services, layoffs, decreased academic budgets. The real life implications aren’t considered by the politicians who praise such fiscal restraint.
Mark,
You bring up some good points about EMU’s attrition rate for first year students, any idea on what EMU can do to improve upon this? Because EMU basically has an open enrollment policy we allow students to enroll who many believe are not prepared for college level work. When the idea of improving entrance standards has been discussed with admissions and Susan Martin, the only response has been that EMU will continue to focus on providing an affordable University education to a diverse community. Isn’t that our problem, EMU is so focused on letting everyone in to this school they stopped caring if the students are able to graduate. So I guess this question goes out to any of the professors on here, what should EMU change so that our attrition rate isn’t so bad, if we continue to let everyone and anyone enroll my only answer is make graduation easier because lets face it without improving standards thats our only choice.
For related stories on EMU’s graduation rates, see today’s Echo for Part 1 of a 2 part series by Editor in Chief Katrease Stafford on graduation rates and strategies to boost retention and persistence through to graduation. Also note that EMU has a very high number of transfer students each year — about as many as FTIACs, but transfer students are not counted in graduation rate calculations despite the anecdotal evidence that they are the ones pushing through to graduation. Follow Stafford in the Echo on Mondays and Thursdays in print and 24/7 online at http://www.easternecho.com.
By all means, everyone should read the informative ECHO story.
But the fact remains — EMU has an abysmal attrition rate with the students who start here: less than 4 out of 10 graduate within six years, and that’s been so for decades. Abysmal, inexcusable, and tolerated by EMU top administrators, faculty, Regents, and budget makers, for generations. Yet solutions are clear, and readily adaptable, if there is a will to really tackle the problem. The Governor seems to think we should tackle it, and so do Duncan and Biden.
Whatever rate of success at graduating transfer students is a different story, altogether, as they, by and large, have some successful college experiences behind them before they ever step on to the EMU campus. Most college graduates in the USA and here have transferred before graduating.
Dypo,
Yeah, I have lots of ideas about what EMU could do, should do, to raise our 60% attrition rate. First, we admit it’s a HUGE problem, admit we as a university are rightly judged by this failure to serve 6 in 10 students who start.
Admit that doing things as they’ve always been done will result in….the status quo: 6 in 10 students NOT graduating. For 30 years, the problem has been talked about, but little that was REAL done about it.
Then, design a first year experience and General Education program that builds skills and habits that are necessary for academic success and success in life. This would require many changes, such as abandoning the turf-centered student credit hour production goals of the short term.
This is not rocket science. It’s education, and this campus has a horde of first rate educators. What the campus lacks is a structure for those educators to grapple with problems larger than our own majors and departments. The broad issues of retention and student achievement are the most studied issues in all of higher education, and yet that large literature is almost entirely irrelevant to EMU’s budgetary priorities. Sad but true.
And part of this should be, cease to admit students who aren’t literate. We can’t and shouldn’t try to give them a college education, and shouldn’t take their money while failing to do any good. We should only admit students who we realistically have a chance of serving well. Whether that group is large or small, I can’t say, but we have that group in each freshman class: and they bring down the achievements of the whole freshman class (negative peer impact). Let’s focus on reaching the students who are bored in class, bored in college, but who could be reached before they’re bound for the 60% attrition rate.