Comments about ‘Utah graduation rates lagging’

I attended the Mountain Crest High School graduation last night as my granddaughter was one of the students. The principle said 95% graduated. That is very good. Perhaps if the STEM program was used in Utah it would help. That is science, technology, engineering, math. Students are paid to take the AP test and according to their score and teachers get a bonus on how well their students do. Maybe we need to pay college students?

With the number of differnt groups moving into Utah with limited English skills etc.The graduation numbers will be lower. No big deal..

Missions!?!? How do they affect the data? I can't believe they weren't even mentioned. It's possible that they don't count in the 6-year time frame mentioned, but last time I heard somebody talk about graduation rates, the 2 years (or 18 months) Utah college students spend away from from school DID factor into the graduation rate and is a major reason that no university in Utah (as long as the state is mostly LDS) would ever be considered top-notch.

Forget paying college students - maybe it would help if college tuition weren't so falsely inflated so we weren't in debt for half of the rest of our lives. That's one of the reasons that BYU graduates so well - tuition is actually something I would call "reasonable," unlike universities throughout the rest of the nation. It helps if we can afford to finish. And you don't have to pay college students if they didn't have to pay tens of thousands of dollars per semester.

Maybe if we didn't pay a football coach millions of dollars, we would have some money to lower tuition costs.

State schools are usually easier to get into; hence students who are more likely to be not as serious about their education or getting a degree. These students often waste their time, money and taxpayers money on degrees such as physcology and consumer studies which does absolutely nothing to prepare a student to earn a living.

It is very difficult to get into BYU; hence the sudents are more serious about their education and committed to getting their degree.

If you want higher graduation rates the schools need to raise their entrance standards. It would also save tax dollars and put young people to work and paying taxes who shouldn't be in college to begin with.

How could this article be written in Utah without considering the mission factor? I wonder where Wendy Leonard, the author, received her degree.

There should be a "missionary" adjustment factor in there. For example, if I start college, then go on a mission, then finish a degree after 5 total years of school, it counts against Utah because it took 7 years to get in the 5 years of school.

It's a national study...therefore, every state has students affected by nonspecific leaves (including missions). The six-year span gives time for students leaving on missions. And actually, Utah's rates are even lower when you include all nine state schools (which weren't included in the report). However, Utah is within the national average anyway...so why all the bickering?!

People can't afford the rising costs of college and are in debt whether they graduate or not. It is not that people don't want to graduate it is that they can't.

It is true that missions throw off the statistics. While attending a top education graduate school in New York (TC) I pointed out the mission factor to explain that Utah's numbers are probably not an accurate representation of completion rates. The class and professor were dumbfounded; they had never considered this factor. National researchers have no idea about the mission factor, or at least they do not consider it in their research.

The comparisons between Utah schools should still be valid however as BYU is undoubtedly most adversely impacted by missions and graduation rates. I work in student affairs and I can tell you that in many cases it is near impossible for a return missionary to graduate in 6 years (4 when you take away missionary time). At SUU, where I work, and many other state universities the students come in at remedial levels in math and English which require 1-2 semesters of "catch up" before they begin taking classes for credit. Unless these students take summer classes (where they can not receive financial aid) it is impossible to graduate in time. Therefore, yes missions fudge the numbers in Utah.

If you think that these graduation rates are bad look at community college graduation rates. Community college graduation rates are pathetic, SLCC does better than the national average but still lags far behind four year institutions. CCs educate MORE THAN HALF of all the people who go to college but are continually neglected. Improving the number in 4 year schools is important but the hemorrhaging wound is in community colleges.

People who claim they can't afford college are just making excuses. There are plenty of options out there to pay for college, not to mention saving some money and putting up the cash. I started at Snow College and at 24 I have a masters degree from an expensive private university that I paid for 100% on my own. It can be done but you have to make sacrifices, excuses don't help.

Look at CC #s | 12:01 Many people attend community colleges for a specific skill or a certificate. You're comparing apples to grapes.

It's obviously a result of the commuter school mentality in combination with acceptance rates. The public vs. private things is not actually that accurate because most of the UCs in the California system have fantastic graduation rates (although they are much harder to get into for undergraduates than the U).

My third and last child is approaching graduation from college, in Utah, this fall. Unless you have a scholarship, the tuition at the U of U has increased significantly each year for the past few years. Taking classes that are required in a major , are often only offered during the day. Also, they are not offered except at one time during a term. Consideration for those that work to pay for their schooling is not a priority at all . nonew of my children will have graduated in four years but all will have graduated. No thanks to the Universities they attended. It is obvious, that the student is not the top consideration at Utah Universities.

Although you are partially true in your critique it is not a comparison of apples to grapes. The statistics I am citing,(The Contradictory College by Kevin Dougherty) take into account that many students do not intend to transfer to a 4 year university. Dougherty, Professor of Higher Education and Senior researcher in the Community College Research Center at Columbia University, has shown in multiple studies that students who enter community college with intentions of graduating with an AS/AA and transferring to a four year university are more than 50% less likely to graduate from college, staggering #s if you think about it. Reform is most needed at the CC level.

We all know the real reason Utah has such a huge problem in this area. I wish the Deseret News would have the courage to print the real reason behind this problem.

The average public tuition is $6,585 yearly and the University of Utah is roughly $5,000. Compare the costs of the U with other state flagship universities and you'll be shocked with how low tuition is in Utah. P.J. O'Rourke once said, "if you think health care is expensive now wait until it is free." This is the case with tuition as well, as a state it is important to keep tuition costs down but we must pay for it somehow. If not through tuition and fees it will be through added taxes, which in the end is more expensive than paying tuition. I say quite worrying and make more money.

What is the real reason Utah has a problem in "this area?"

You are either a master at building suspense or are alluding to a reason that is not obvious to the rest of us even though you think it is.