We need new ways to measure the success of colleges and universities serving low-income, minority, first-generation and adult students, argues John Bassett, president of Heritage University in Yakima, Washington, in Inside Higher Ed. The graduation rates calculated by the U.S. Education Department’s IPEDS don’t tell the whole story, he writes.
Most Heritage students . . . need pre-college developmental work; almost all have to hold jobs; many have to “stop out” for a semester from time to time. Some 70 percent are women, many of them single parents determined to raise their families up out of poverty. Graduation figures in the IPEDS data for those who entered at the start of the last decade look miserable at first glance, something like 18 percent in six years.
Some of that reflects an open admissions policy that’s now been modified, Bassett writes. Heritage, a private, non-profit institution, is analyzing data to predict which applicants “can be remediated to do rigorous college work” and which cannot. Heritage “is developing stronger pre-college modules for those with ability and commitment to succeed” and is strengthening advising.
. . . of those students who actually matriculated as full-fledged freshmen between 2003 and 2005 — that is, students who had completed any necessary remedial work — the 8-year graduation rate was 41 percent, not including those who transferred to another college. Of those who successfully became sophomores at Heritage, the graduation rate was 81 percent.
Heritage plans to estimate a likely graduation date for every new student based on remediation needed, credits transferred and whether the student plans to enroll full-time or part-time. This will let the university track students’ success.
Higher education needs an “alternative to IPEDS, or at least a parallel system, that colleges and universities themselves find useful for management and that policy makers can trust,” Bassett concludes.
