Deseret News | Reader comments: Utah graduation rates lagging

Reader comments
Utah graduation rates lagging

falcon's beak | 6:58 a.m. June 3, 2009

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?

Of course | 8:12 a.m. June 3, 2009

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

Belgie | 8:13 a.m. June 3, 2009

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.

Comments continue below

Anonymous | 8:36 a.m. June 3, 2009

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.

Anonymous | 10:11 a.m. June 3, 2009

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

College acceptance is to easy. | 11:00 a.m. June 3, 2009

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.

RedShirt | 11:31 a.m. June 3, 2009

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.

Anonymous | 11:33 a.m. June 3, 2009

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?!

Mallori | 11:47 a.m. June 3, 2009

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.

Missions?? | 11:56 a.m. June 3, 2009

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.

Look at CC #s | 12:01 p.m. June 3, 2009

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.

Re: Mallori | 2:41 p.m. June 3, 2009

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.

Anonymous | 2:47 p.m. June 3, 2009

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

acceptance rates and commuter | 3:15 p.m. June 3, 2009

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).

Allen Pickering | 3:50 p.m. June 3, 2009

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.

RE: Anonymous | 4:39 p.m. June 3, 2009

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.

Reality | 4:45 p.m. June 3, 2009

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.

Anonymous | 4:46 p.m. June 3, 2009

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.

Educate us | 6:46 p.m. June 3, 2009

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

Reality Please | 8:56 p.m. June 3, 2009

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.

Himself | 10:10 a.m. June 4, 2009

Im not sure if this admission to graduation quotient (AGQ) is anything more than a numerical gimmick dreamed up by graduates Stanford and Dartmouth.

The upper level colleges are outliers. Most go to large public institutions. Because they are affordable. They are affordable because they are publicly subsidized. Because they are publicly subsidized there is a public interest in allowing as many as possible to have an educational opportunity.

So you have a lower A you must expect a lower G.

The authors deny the AGQ tells us something about the quality of the education. But it does. It says
if an institution has respect for opportunity and quality of education then 1/2 the students will not make it. The other 1/2 will get a very good higher education. This is the best form of American free enterprise.

conGradulations | 10:42 a.m. June 4, 2009

Utah puts the "ding-dong" into the bell curve. This is really much ado about nothing, considering this year our state cut education budgets at record rates to accomodate spending in a depression for other state services. So it ain't gonna get better anytime soon, and adding more hoops to the administrators to jump through will only drain off more resources that could be used in actually teaching. If you want to improve levels of education, add more qualified professors and provide more classes.

Questioning-6-years | 11:24 a.m. June 4, 2009

College graduation expected in 6 years? Only one who merely did college, without courses beyond degree requirements, no outside work, military and reserve duty, career broadening, charity (including missions), didn't change majors (most students switch), extracurriculars, starting families, retook classes for better GPA's or because colleges attended later have slightly "different" classes, couldn't decipher foreign profs' lectures, couldn't pay for books, much less tuition, traveled to/from home to save money, etc. Some (engineering etc.) take far more than four years at higher loads, etc.
Most of the above applied to me in my seven years.

Eight years, not six, would include most eventual college grads; six is absurd, even with AP classes.

Further, it's bogus math to cite a State college grad rate of 50.5% (more precision than original data), and for only 6 colleges. It also falsely gives far more weight to each student in small schools than in large schools. This is worse than useless. Journalists should take math at least through calculus, as our kids all did in high school, but journalism's appeal is absence of math, so why leave it to journalists to write of it?

Emily A. | 9:17 a.m. July 16, 2009

This response is directed at Questioning-6-years. Clearly, the reason you did not graduate in six years is because there were other things you thought were more important than completing college in a timely fashion. A lot of other things. And that's fine, as long as you recognize that these consequences are the result of choices you made, not because the system itself is flawed. I double-majored, while taking many classes outside my majors. I participated in many extracurricular activities and joined about six clubs. I spent four months studying in India, five in Scotland, took internships in New York and DC, and, through working as a waitress, contributed twice as much money as either of my parents toward paying for school. I'm graduating this May after four wonderful years of college. It is possible to construct a rich, full life in and around attending school and still graduate in four years, as long as that goal is a priority. It was for me.

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