53% of Hispanic Students Fail to Graduate from College

WASHINGTON (By Karen W. Arenson, NYTimes) May 26, 2004 - As growing numbers of Americans enter college, most colleges and universities have failed to ensure that students will graduate in a reasonable time frame, according to a study released today by the Education Trust in Washington.

Only 63 percent of full-time students at four-year colleges graduate within six years — a common yardstick for measuring graduation rates — the report says. And these rates have remained flat for more than 20 years.

Graduation rates are especially low for minority students and those from low-income families, the report says. Only 46 percent of black students, 47 percent of Hispanic students and 54 percent of low-income students graduate within six years.

The report says that "the typical American college or university has a graduation rate gap between white and African-American students of over 10 percentage points" and that a quarter have a gap of 20 points or more.

The pattern for Hispanic students is similar, it says.

It says that graduation rates have remained stuck for more than two decades. For the high school class of 1972, 66 percent graduated from college within eight years. For the high school class of 1992, the rate was 67 percent.

"But the consequences of not graduating have not stayed the same," the report says. "Once, those who tried and failed to get a college degree still had the opportunity to find a solid middle-management job and move up a career ladder. Lack of success in college was seen as an individual disappointment, not a national dilemma."

Now, it says, with jobs moving around the globe, people without college diplomas "face an uncertain and unstable future."

By its count, half a million college students every year fall short of getting their diplomas, with minority and low-income students disproportionately represented in that group.

Kevin Carey, a senior policy analyst at the trust who wrote the report, said the disparities have become more visible now that the Department of Education has begun to publish a government report on graduation rates by student gender, race and ethnicity.

Although graduation rates for colleges are typically highly correlated with the quality of their students, the trust said it had found a handful of colleges that had been able to push their graduation rates well above those of other colleges with similar students.

"There is a sense in the academic world that graduation rates are exclusively determined by the student body," Mr. Carey said. "That is not true. It is an important factor. But there are things institutions can do to improve their graduation rates that make a big difference. Some institutions clearly outperform their peer institutions year after year, not by two or three points, but by 15 or 20 points, consistently. Many, if not most, higher education institutions could do a lot more."

The trust, an advocacy group that favors standards-based education, called on colleges to adopt some of the strategies the model colleges use. It also recommended that states link their financial support for colleges to the progress their students make and their graduation rates.

One of the campuses cited for its performance was Binghamton University, part of the State University of New York. Its six-year graduation rate is 79 percent; among similar universities with comparable students, half have rates below 70 percent.

The trust said that Binghamton had also found ways to ensure that its under-represented minority students graduated at almost the same rates as its other students — and at rates well above those of its peer institutions. Seventy-seven percent of Binghamton's black students graduate within six years, compared to 59 percent, or less, at half of its peer institutions, the report says.

Another model campus was the University of Northern Iowa, where the six-year graduation rate is 67 percent, compared to 40 percent for comparable institutions. Miami University of Ohio has an 81 percent graduation rate compared to a median rate of 68 percent among its peers.

And Elizabeth City State University, a historically black campus in North Carolina, has a 53 percent six-year graduation rate. Half of its peer institutions had rates of 39 percent or less.

Two campuses that have shown substantial improvement in recent years, the report says, were Louisiana Tech University (55 percent in 2002, up from 35 percent in 1997) and the University of Florida (77 percent in 2002, up from 64 percent in 1997). The University of Florida has worked to monitor its students better, improve advisory offices and provide more classes that students need.

"These high-performers offer powerful evidence that our higher education system has the capacity for great improvement," the report says.

But it charged that most campuses do not feel a sense of urgency.

"With more students at the doorstep every fall, significant barriers to competition, and a market muddled by lack of information, many colleges and universities can operate in comfortable insulation for years or even decades, without really improving student outcomes that are often distressingly low," the report says. "This simply must change."