Here's A Quick Way to Increase Graduation Rates for Colleges

One of the metrics that colleges use to measure quality is the percent of class that complete the requirement for graduating.  For-profit colleges especially face a harsh standard when measured by graduation rates for the sole reason that they accept a lower standard of student. For those for-profit colleges, here is a quick way to increase that graduation rate: raise the standard of student accepted.

From discussions on the subject, it may be gleaned that academically powerful students are at less risk of not graduating when compared to a student who is less capable.  Other factors play into increasing the chance of not graduating, including if the student is

• the first in the family to go to college,
• from a low-income background
• from a minority ethnicity

If a college becomes selective and does not accept such high risk cases, that college's graduation rates will spike upward.  If we set to measure colleges by graduation rates, that college will suddenly look much nicer.  Yet if all the colleges tried this the high risk students will effectively be denied higher education, which is absolutely not the effect sought in improving higher education institiutions.

Graduation Rates Today

InsideHigherEd.com has an article (http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2009/06/18/career) in which there are several tables comparing several statistics among public, private, and for-profit colleges.  In these statistics there is the below table showing graduation rates for each of these institutions.