50 state universities with best, worst grad rates

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(MoneyWatch) College is expensive, but it costs even more for the students who don't graduate in four years (and the odds of pulling this off aren't good).

At public universities, 31.3 percent of students graduate in the traditional four years, versus 52.4 percent for those at private, nonprofit institutions. An excellent place to find and compare graduation rates is at the College Completion section on the website of The Chronicle of Higher Education. 

Not surprisingly, the state schools with the best graduation rates tend to be the wealthier state flagships, while the institutions with the rates are regional universities that could be characterized as drop-out factories. The Following lists state universities with the best and worst six-year graduation rates:

Best state university graduation rates

1. University of Virginia, 92.7 percent
2. University of California, Berkeley, 91.1 percent
3. University of California, Los Angeles, 89.8 percent
4. University of Michigan. 89.7 percent
5. College of William and Mary, 89.7 percent
6. United States Naval Academy, 88.6 percent
7. University of North Carolina, 88.1 percent
8. College of New Jersey, 86.2 percent
9. University of California, San Diego, 86.1 percent
10. United States Military Academy, 85.7 percent
11. Pennsylvania State University, 85.3 percent
12. University of Florida, 84.5 percent
13. University of Illinois, 84.4 percent
14. University of Wisconsin, 83.0 percent
15. University of California, Irvine, 82.6 percent
16. James Madison University, 82.5 percent
17. University of California, Davis, 82.3 percent
18. United States Air Force Academy, 81.5 percent
19. University of Maryland, 81.5 percent
20. University of Connecticut, 80.7 percent
21. University of Washington, 80. 4 percent
22. University of Texas, 80.3 percent
23. Miami University (Ohio), 80.2 percent
24. Texas A&M University, 79.9 percent
25. Virginia Tech University 79.9 percent
    

Worst state university graduation rates

1. Vincennes University, 0 percent
2. University of Houston-Downtown, 12.4 percent
3. Texas Southern University, 13.3 percent
4. Chicago State University, 13.9 percent
5. Cameron University, 14.1 percent
6. Utah Valley University, 15 percent
7. Coppin State University ,16.3 percent
8. Central State University, 19.4 percent
9. Indiana University-Northwest, 19.4 percent
10. CUNY York College, 19.5 percent
11. University of Texas at Brownsville, 19.6 percent
12. University of New Orleans, 20 percent
13. Northeastern Illinois University, 20.1 percent
14. Metropolitan State College of Denver, 20.5 percent
15. Shawnee State University, 20.5 percent
16. University of Arkansas Little Rock, 20.8 percent
17. Southern University and A&M College, 21.2 percent
18. Clayton State University, 21.9 percent
19. Kent State University -- Stark, 23.1 percent
20. Alabama State University, 24 percent
21. Eastern New Mexico University 24.1 percent
22. University of Arkansas at Monticello, 24.2 percent
23. University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff,  24.2 percent
24. Augusta State University, 25.5 percent
25. Auburn University at Montgomery 24.5 percent

[Slarty-Bartfast]

" ... the institutions with the rates are regional universities that could be characterized as drop-out factories."

That is a conclusion not based in fact. Many of those regional universities are given much less support than the flagship institutions, and enroll a higher percentage of "at risk" students who require more resources to retain. Thus, less money to educate harder to educate students.

This is slanted and ignorant journamalism.

[talkbackwards]

Are you folks commenting kidding me? More like kidding yourself. I am guessing that your schools are on the bottom of the list or not even on it. Look at the complete list at http://collegecompletion.chronicle.com/table/ Note the top colleges listed, both private and public: Harvard, Yale, Notre Dame, Princeton, Brown, U Penn, Vassar, BC, Johns Hopkins, UCLA, Villanova, USC, Annopolis, UNC, TCNJ, WestPoint, Carnegie Mellon... Are you saying they are there because of some perceived poor statistics of this analysis? These institutions didn't get their overall reputation due to some flawed analysis. Don't kid yourselves...

[Connecticut_Boy]

Read this again: "...while the institutions with the rates are regional universities that..." With the rates? "The Following lists state universities..." I hate to be the Grammar Nazi, but you put as little thought into writing this as you did researching it. These numbers mean nothing, out of a richer context. Do schools have a higher graduation rate because they are more selective, enrolling higher quality students? Or is it because they have no grading standards and graduate anyone with a pulse? Do people drop out because it is too challenging? Or is it because they are too easy, so that quality students transfer to more legitimate schools? This article is little more than troll-bait, although it is dressed up in the quantitative garb of legitimacy. It's a complete waste of time.

[dsliesse]

Actually, if you follow the links and read about the study you see that it's limited to first-enrollment, full-time students (i.e., those that drop out and re-enroll later or at another school are not included). I'm not sure how well that can be tracked, though. When a student leaves School A, how do they know he or she enrolled later at School B? The explanation of the methodology leaves a bit to be desired.

The other question I have is whether the data are adjusted to account for programs that by nature take longer to graduate. When I was in school, for example, Forestry (not my major, but a big one at my university) was a 5-year program by design. If the study gives 4-year degree students 2 extra years to graduate, does it do the same for 5-year degree students?

[MerrilAnn]

I do believe that college students are tracked by SSN across multiple schools in the Nat'l Center on Educational Statistics, so those who change institutions can be statistically included.

These stats do not include those who begin their college education at community colleges, though. In Calif., that is the majority of college students by design. Hence, the study does have some inherent bias as it only considers one group of the students attending those institutions: those who began as first time freshmen.

As for six-year graduation rates, no these studies do not take into consideration five-year programs such as forestry, architecture, interior design, or engineering. There are other studies that do, though.

[kdeetz]

VU baccalaureate grad rate based on 2004 enrollment numbers; four-year programs didn't begin until 2005

Vincennes University is a 2-year public institution that introduced seven baccalaureate degrees in 2005. The IPEDS report cited in this story is based on a student cohort of first-time, full-time, degree-seeking students who began the previous year, fall of 2004, and completed a four-year degree in six years time (2004 to 2010). A 0% graduation rate occurred because the programs did not exist in 2004 so there were no students enrolled.

IPEDS lists VU as a four-year institution because it does offer four-year degrees and requires the tracking of those degrees; however, it also acknowledges that Vincennes University primarily awards associate degrees. The most recent degree completion data reports that Vincennes University awarded 1,256 associate degrees and 91 bachelor degrees.

(Source: IPEDS College Navigator; All degrees awarded between July 1, 2010, and June 30, 2011;
http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/?q=vincennes+university&s=all&id=152637#programs )

Response from Vincennes University
Kristi Deetz, Senior Director of External Relations

[BrittniD]

I spent a good 30 minutes trying to figure out how a college had a zero percent graduation rate. Thank you for that insight.

There are 3 Arkansas schools on that list, and it's obvious that the limitations of the study make the study useless. Cost of school, enrollment limitations, common degrees, all of these also play a role.

[EmberMike]

How can you include a 2-year school in a 4-year report? No wonder Vincennes University has 0% of their students graduating in 4 years. Did you spend more than 5 minutes researching this report? Nice "journalism" here.

[Prosaic1]

A lot of the institutions on your lowest 20 are (a) open-admissions, (b) inexpensive, (c) offer AA degrees that ignored in these polls, and (d) have many students attending part-time, since they cater to non-traditional students (it may take them 8 years to graduate on time). By posting this superficial summary of a complex situation and calling those institutions drop-out factories you are just reinforcing the same negativity those institutions and their students battle every day for making more of their local citizens college educated.

[MerrilAnn]

The statistics related to education are decidedly complex. The original source reports are much less biased and do not draw conclusions based on faulty logic as this (likely less trained in stats) author did.

Input data -- the academic preparation of the students attending, if the student has financial and emotional support (from one's family or otherwise), generational status as a student, whether a student is invested and involved in school vs. working full-time to support themselves in their educational process all have impact on the grad. rates.

Most, if not all, of the 'top 20' universities require students to attend full-time every term except by petition. At institutions that do not require that, students who elect to attend part-time may make consistent progress, but are likely to take longer than six years to graduate. Is that student any less of a success? Of course not.

There are some challenges to attending part-time in some fields that are changing quickly. As well, students get worn out at some point and give up. At my institution, we have sometimes seen that happen when they're very close to graduating. Did those students 'fail' to be educated? No, yet they are not included positively in the grad. statistics as though graduation is the only marker of a students' benefiting from an institution.

My poins here are to provide additional support to PROSAIC1's comment above: interpreting the results is complex than this author made it out to be.