Secretary of Education Arne Duncan highlighted several times during the press conference today that completion is key given low college graduation rates. In exasperation, he mentioned that there are colleges today that have graduation rates below 10%. So, I thought I would go looking for them.
Where to turn for such a task at 11pm? IPEDS Data Center, of course. I ran a quick query to look at 6-year graduation rates at almost 2,000 schools. According to the IPED database, using 2007 data, there were 139 institutions that had graduation rates below 10%. Overall, the median graduation rate for this sample of schools was 49%, which seems in the ballpark for estimates that I have seen out there.
Here was the distribution analysis:
| Percentage of Students Earning | |
| Bachelor's Degree Within 6 Years | Number of Schools |
| 100% | 21 |
| 90% to 99% | 49 |
| 80% to 89% | 106 |
| 70% to 79% | 186 |
| 60% to 69% | 244 |
| 50% to 59% | 368 |
| 40% to 49% | 344 |
| 30% to 39% | 296 |
| 20% to 29% | 152 |
| 10% to 19% | 86 |
| Less than 10% | 139 |
| TOTAL | 1991 |
Please feel free to contact me at tranzetta@studentlendinganalytics.com if you are interested in a copy of this spreadsheet which includes graduation rates for each of the 1,991 schools.
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So what? I started college in 1973 and graduated in 1980. I went to school part-time because I had a FULL-TIME job. How many others like me? How do we affect the data?
Posted by: buddy66 | September 17, 2009 at 03:10 PM
It took me ten years and three different universities before I graduated, but I ended up graduating summa cum laude and am now a CPA. It ain't all bad.
Posted by: Doctor Biobrain | September 17, 2009 at 03:22 PM
I'm just as scared by the 21 with 100% grad rates.. how many cracker jack tops does it take to pull off that feat?
Posted by: bubba | September 17, 2009 at 11:44 PM
I was expecting a list of the 139 institutions.
Posted by: Larry Roberts | September 18, 2009 at 06:16 AM
Buddy66 wants to know how many people did in fact get their degrees after more than 6 years. The answer is darn few, barely enough to make a smudge on the statistics.
Along with bubba, I was somewhat put off by a school claiming a 100% graduation rate, let alone 21 of them. There has to be something fishy with those data.
Posted by: Texas Aggie | September 18, 2009 at 08:21 AM
I checked that list for four year schools and there were none claiming 100% graduation rates. The Air Force Academy was the highest. I suspect that the 100% graduation rates were from two year schools of cosmetology or something similar.
Posted by: Texas Aggie | September 18, 2009 at 08:49 AM