US Colleges Face MAJOR Dropout Scandal

United States colleges deal with a major dropout scandal. John Iadarola and David Kirp break it down on The Damage Report. Follow The Damage Report on Facebook: 

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"David Kirp says the graduation rates of most American colleges and universities are unacceptable -- they are simply too low. In The College Dropout Scandal (Oxford University Press), Kirp makes the case for dramatic improvements. A professor at the Graduate School of the University of California, Berkeley, he outlines his views in this email interview.

Q: How do you define the "scandal"? As you note, college graduation rates vary in part based on the students being educated. How can you tell (roughly) what success rates should be at different kinds of colleges?

A: “Give us better students and we’ll improve the graduation rate” -- that rationale for belittling the dropout crisis is often heard, but it’s dead wrong. As College Results Online, an invaluable source, shows, the graduation rates among colleges whose freshmen look the same on paper can vary by more than 25 percent, and the opportunity gap for undergraduates I call “new gen” -- underrepresented minorities, Pell Grant recipients and first-generation students -- can vary at least as much.

At some schools, including Georgia State, the graduation rate for these new-gen undergraduates is greater than the campuswide average. Elsewhere, the story is very different. For instance, the undergraduates at Cal State Chico mirror those at Eastern Michigan. But while 68.7 percent of Chico State students graduate in six years, just 40.7 percent of Eastern Michigan undergrads earn a bachelor’s degree. What’s more, the opportunity gap for new-gen students at Chico State is modest. By sharp contrast, minority students at Eastern Michigan graduate are half as likely to graduate as their classmates. That’s unconscionable."

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