Graduation rates at 3 state universities 'embarrassing'

UA is next to last, and ASU is last in Pac-10 Conference student completion figures for '02.

The Arizona Republic

The graduation rates at Arizona's three state universities are so low that University of Arizona President Peter Likins calls the rates "embarrassing."
In 2002, the most recent year for which comparative rates are available, the University of Arizona ranked next to last and Arizona State University ranked last in the Pac-10 Conference in graduation rates.

The lowest six-year graduation rate in the state, 28 percent, belongs to Prescott College, which has a policy of encouraging students to take time off. The highest graduation rate belongs not to a four-year college or university but to Universal Technical Institute's two-year motorcycle maintenance program in Glendale, which graduated 94.6 percent of its students between 1999 and 2002, according to federal government statistics.

Universities use three measurements for graduation rates: those who graduate in four years, those who graduate in five and those who graduate in six. As classes get harder to get into because of burgeoning enrollment and fewer classes are available because of cuts in state funds, it's becoming harder to graduate in four years.

Six years is the standard most universities use because it allows for personal factors and part-time students.

Slightly more than 50 percent of students who began at UA or ASU in 1996 had graduated by 2002.

Fewer than 46 percent of students at Northern Arizona University graduated in the same period.

In a funding plan the state Board of Regents is forwarding to the Legislature for the 2006-07 school year, a university that increases its graduation rates would receive more money from the state.

As enrollment grows, state funding hasn't kept up. According to ASU figures, the school takes a loss of about $2,300 a student. That means big classes that students can get lost in, academic advisers with 1,000 students, general big-school problems.

UA surveys have found that about a third of students who leave do so for personal reasons, a third leave because of academic issues and a third leave for other institutions or the military.

Rick Kroc, UA's vice president for enrollment management, said funding isn't the only issue.

Arizona's two large research universities have very different admissions profiles from their peers.

"The admission requirements we have in the state of Arizona are more liberal than at other schools in the (American Association of Universities)," Kroc said. "In comparison, we have lower graduation rates, lower SAT scores, that sort of thing. We can't expect to have the graduation rates of a UCLA or a Michigan. Our graduation rates are commensurate with the preparation level of our students."

The average high school grade-point average for students admitted to the University of Washington in 2003 was 3.67. It was 3.36 at ASU and 3.39 at UA. At NAU, it was 3.4.

At Washington, 97 percent of admitted students had grade-point averages greater than 3.0; at ASU, it's 79 percent, at UA, 81.6 percent, and at NAU, 76 percent.

High school preparation isn't the entire story. Some people just don't do well in college.

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