University Retention Needs Attention

Working for the campus newspaper at the University of California, San Diego I would often be faced with topic ideas involving retention rates and graduation statistics, as well as those studies which discuss middle school and high school students and some aspect of their college goals. More often than not they would lead to debate about the importance of a higher education – and inevitably these stories would find themselves passed over for a more interesting or lively article.

All discussions would end with the near unanimous conclusion that college degrees have become the new high school diplomas and graduates entering the work force increasingly find they are in need of further education to sustain any kind of substantial income, lest they find themselves working nights as wait staff in some chain diner.

These discussions were often carried out anecdotally and without research. Nevertheless, they felt true and sometimes that is more official than a study or report.

However, recent findings in a survey of student retention rates by the National Audit Office of the UK have made me more seriously question the higher education system here in the United States.

The report has aroused concern in the UK about freshman retention rates and new government policies driving up university enrollment. According to the National Audit Office more than 100,000 students are dropping out of college course after their first year, and as much as 22.4 percent of students seeking a degree in the UK fail to complete their courses.

Nevertheless, the UK ranks fifth in the world for university retention, behind Japan, Ireland, Korea and Greece. The United States is, sad as it may be, one of the worst rated countries for college retention levels, with only slightly more than 50 percent of our students continuing into their second year of higher education.

The UK has a 91.6 percent rate of freshman retention. The common solution to low numbers of graduating university students, both in the United States, and in the UK where percentages are significantly higher, has been to bolster enrollment in college. However, retention rates are not improving, and some have suggested in the UK that these rates are actually climbing because of the push for higher education.

Sally Hunt, general secretary of the University and College Union in the UK, said: "It is alarming that the institutions that are doing so much to further the widening participation agenda are the ones suffering the highest drop-out rates. We have to understand that just getting students to university is not enough."

While the problem is certainly not new, it is alarming, and although my fellow writers and I could very much see the need in our country for a higher education, we should have also noticed the incredibly low retention rate. However, college drop-outs and, even worse, high school drop-outs are so common place in America that the real epidemic of this problem goes unobserved or un-combated. Our nation, while increasingly stressing the importance of not only a bachelor’s degree, but a Masters or PhD, has continued to isolate and repress individuals without a higher education. Often those who are of lower incomes or have families to care for get lost in the system and add to our crippling retention rates.

It is time for our nations leaders, our educators and university administrators – it is time for us – to take action and see to it that those students who head to college remain in college, have the ability to remain in college, and have the resources to obtain a degree.

“You walk into a high school and 50 percent of the kids aren’t graduating, people say ‘What’s the matter with this place? Get me the principal. Get me the school board. Let’s put this place in receivership,’” said Patrick M. Callan, president of the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education. “But people walk into [a college] and say ‘What’s the matter with these students? We gave them a chance to go to college.’”

Here is a list of the Top Twenty Universities in the Nation according to U.S. News and World Report, all of which lead the nation in freshman retention:

1. Princeton University(NJ)

2. Harvard University(MA)

3. Yale University(CT)

4. California Institute of Technology

5. Stanford University(CA)

6. Massachusetts Inst. of Technology

7. University of Pennsylvania

8. Duke University(NC)

9. Dartmouth College(NH)

10. Columbia University(NY)

11. University of Chicago

12. Cornell University(NY)