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Raising Graduation Rates is Top Priority
The University of Texas System's nine academic institutions have already improved students' access to their institutions, said Chancellor Mark G. Yudof.
"Now we need to focus on improving our students' success once they come to our campuses," Yudof said. "Significantly raising our graduation rates is one of our greatest priorities."
To address this critical problem, the UT System Board of Regents will be reviewing and adopting specific measures to improve graduation rates at their upcoming February meeting.
“The Board of Regents and I are committed to significantly improving the graduation rates at all our academic institutions,” said James R. Huffines, chairman of the Board of Regents. “We will be considering the best possible options to meet this challenge at our next meeting — and we intend to act swiftly and decisively.”
Nationwide, 52 percent of first-time, full-time, degree-seeking public university students who began their education in 1996 graduated in six years. Rates at UT institutions were lower than this national average, with five institutions recording six-year graduation rates below 37 percent for the same period.
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At the conference, where strategies and research findings to improve graduation rates were presented, Dr. Paredes and other speakers urged audience members to identify what approaches work at other campuses — but to tailor their plans to their campuses.
"If we don't do anything differently, then graduation rates won't change," said Gary Hanson, UT System senior research and policy analyst.
Noting that every student who drops out of college has multiple reasons for the decision, Dr. Hanson said lack of academic preparation and poor first-year college performance strongly predict who will fail to graduate. "The impact of failing one or two courses in the first year of college can be dramatic," he said.
To address students' academic preparation, Dr. Paredes counseled higher-education institutions to work more closely with public schools so the schools better understand the skills students need to succeed in college. "Working with K-12 is in our enlightened self-interest," he said. "It's easier to prepare students in the earlier grades than it is to prepare them once they come to college."
Summer bridge programs that identify under-prepared students with high potential, a more rigorous senior year in high school, and a culture that expects students will go to college will all add to students' chances of success in college, Dr. Paredes said. Since so many students come to four-year universities from community colleges, he said, two- and four-year institutions need to work together to ease students' transitions and encourage them to transfer.
Once students are in college, research shows those most likely to leave before graduation go to campuses that admit almost all students with a high-school degree or degree equivalent. Students who are also likelier to leave before graduation are poorly prepared, work part-time and attend classes part-time, said Teresa Sullivan, executive vice chancellor for academic affairs at the UT System. First generation college students, non-traditional students, and students who are geographically mobile (such as those whose parents are in the military) are all at greater risk for dropping out, she said.
"We have to change our institutional culture," Gary Hanson said. "We have to develop the attitude all students can succeed — and we have to help them succeed. In the past, we've placed most of the responsibility on the students. But now we're going to have to change the classroom and how our faculty members teach."
In general, "Smaller is better," said George Kuh, the conference's keynote speaker and chancellor's professor of higher education at Indiana University. "Size at universities is an obstacle we have to overcome. But some larger institutions perform as well as smaller institutions in retaining students. We have to learn what they do and how they've gotten where they are."
Dr. Kuh recommended increasing students' engagement in the higher-education community by encouraging interactions with faculty members, providing more feedback to students, and helping them feel a part of the campus community.
At large campuses like UT Austin, supplemental instruction and freshman interest groups have proven particularly successful in retaining students, said James W. Vick, a math professor and former vice president for student affairs at UT Austin.
Supplemental instruction targets courses where grades have been low, offering extra classes taught by graduate students who have been trained about both the subject matter and how students learn. Freshman interest groups, or FIGs, create a small community of students who register as a cluster for three related classes. A weekly seminar also helps FIG students get to know one another.
"So far, the data are really remarkable," Dr. Vick said. In 2004, UT Austin's FIG participants posted average grade point averages of 3.12, compared with non-FIG students' 2.83. At 98.4 percent, their retention rates were also higher.
To increase UT institutions' graduation rates, "We need to figure out what we can do right now," said Teresa Sullivan. "We can begin to see changes in successful completion of gateway courses, such as calculus, and in freshman retention rates. Eventually we will see improvement in the six-year graduation rates."
"We're in it for the long run."
-- Ruth Pennebaker
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