REPORT: less than half of college students actually graduate - Matrix News: noteworthy people, programs, funding, and technological advances in the world of higher education - Brief Article

Matrix: The Magazine for Leaders in Education, Oct, 2001 by Al Branch

Over the past 17 years, the percentage of four-year college and university students who graduate has dipped more than 10 percentage points, despite increases in enrollment, according to the Council for Aid to Education and the National Governors Association.

About 42 percent of students entering four-year colleges or universities graduate, according to the most recent information from the associations, which is down from about 52 percent in 1983, which is considered a "conservative" estimate, according to one of the researchers and authors of the findings.

"It's the lowest it's been and it's been going down by increments," says Wes Habley, director of ACT's office of educational practices, formerly the American College Testing Service. "That's somewhat staggering when you think about the amount of money invested in people who don't finish."

A number of factors have contributed to the high dropout rate, according to Habley.

"Access is part of the answer," Habley says. "There is a notion of entitlement for the U.S. population" that everyone should have access to a college education "and some lack the requisite skills to succeed."

CAE's senior fellow Richard Hersh agrees that "we have increased access to college, but we haven't done very much about the quality." Instead of cutting back on access, he says he believes K-12 schools have to do a better job preparing people for college, and colleges need to do a better job keeping them there once they arrive.

In addition, changes in the U.S. tax laws in 1992 and 1998 have resulted in more student loans reaching middleclass families, increasing debt loads.

"There's been a great deal of discussion about the huge debt burden. Is this helping the middle class?" Bridget Terry Long, an economist at Harvard University's School of Education, told Reuters.

Long says the changes have also meant "that more money is going to middle class kids who would normally go to college and less is being made available to the poor. Subsidized loans, those that the government pays or waives the interest on while a student is in college, have remained basically level. But the unsubsidized student loans have really taken off."

Estimates place student aid at about $68 billion during the 1999-2000 academic year, which includes federal loans, subsidies, state grants and student loans.

In addition, states contributed another $60 billion directly to colleges "so that state schools could offer lower tuition to their students," Long says, citing figures from the College Board, creators of the SAT college admission tests.

More than 70 percent of students attending four-year schools spend $8,000 or less a year on tuition and fees; only 9 percent pay more than $20,000, according to College Board figures.

The College Board estimates that college graduates earn on average 81 percent more than those with high school diplomas. During a lifetime, the gap in earnings potential between a high school diploma and a baccalaureate degree is more than $1 million.

But that is for college graduates. What about those that drop out?

"There is some evidence," Long says, "That even those who have only one year of college benefit."

Reuters News Service contributed to this report.