Nearly all students enter the
college with a purpose to graduate. They realize that with achieving higher
education, they will be a bigger opportunity for them to improve and also
secure their future life. However, numbers of colleges have experienced failures
in rates of their graduation within the last few years. Worst from this
situation, some of those colleges also have enlarged their rates expressively.
This is quite ironic if we take a
look at a statistic report which made as a comparison between people who gets
their bachelor’s degree with people who only gets a diploma. The report
mentioned that investing in education life could really lead to a quite diverse
future life. In fact, those people who have a bachelor’s degree could earn
around $32,000 every year (Castleman & Long, 2016).
This article covers up the importance
of the college graduation, some recommendations to solve the issue, and also a
conclusion that we can get from this topic.
Statement to improve the College Graduation Rate
According to the latest
Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System or IPEDS data, numbers of
educational institutions are really observing the rates of college graduation.
The number of freshmen students graduation in about 4 years has suggestively gone
up in which merely of freshmen who started in the year of 1996
and graduated within 4 years, compared to about of freshmen who started in the year of 2010 (Kimbark, et
al., 2017).
Speculation also have made which
mentioned that the main reason of increment is due to an appearance of grade
inflation, where there are many students passing through the classes and also
get their graduation, without really getting their grades. On the other hand,
higher rates of college graduation are, indeed, considered as a reflection of
altering attitudes to education.
In addition to this, in these
modern days, the college students get lots of backup such as tutoring,
facilities meant for learning and physical disabilities, along with any
financial counselling. Moreover, now there are more students within older age
and small salary are taking their college education with big motivation to
achieve their goals in career, which is a contrast to the model of wandering
college student.
Within an environment where responsibility
and pellucidity have turn out as mottos designed for effectively what the government
does, it is easy to recognize the application of graduation rates. A rational
indicator of how fit an institution is providing its students. What is more, a
rational sense proposes a rate of graduation could be a modest, average amount
that is quite easy to estimate. In conclusion, a graduation rate is extremely
easy to recognize with only little explanation is mandatory which is: A big percentage
is good and a low percentage is bad.
One thing to be noted here, even
in the middle of the argument, a school would be considered as a high-quality
college if it has a decent rate of graduation. Obviously, there is no student
want to go to a college with a low percentage of its graduation. But then
again, these percentages are not fixed. Moreover, the graduation rate provides
the students with a vision to get to know how many students are completing
their degrees on time once they register. Not only is it considered as a
see-through metric that grips the liability of a school. Instead, it is also
able to help a student to figure out the school quality as well.
Up till now, there is no single
cause of this decline of graduation rates. However, there are lots of causal
factors impact graduation rates. Many people mentioned that the main core of
these factors is an insufficient system of secondary school that turned
out to flop in preparing their students for college.
Some others have a different
opinion that this rate of college graduation decline due to the fact that there
is a failure catastrophe within various universities, which mostly
triggered by the students’ socioeconomic prestige. In fact, in some
colleges that register many of poorer students, the graduation rates are every
so often low. Moreover, one out of three Americans in their middle 20s
currently drop into this classification, which most of them belong to poor and
working-class families. It is not a rare fact for students who come from
low-income families to turn out in dropping out of college, get a job, and not
complete their degrees (Juszkiewicz, 2017).
In addition to this, the main
changes have appeared in how the students could pay for their college. The
realities that exist now are the grants of government have decreased for the
students, the loan interest rates of students have also increased, and worst,
students now are on the hanger for their tuition college. All of these have
impacted the appearance of the debt crisis for students which predicted would
be crippling for the financial forecast of the future generation as well.
Recommendation to improve the College Graduation
Rate
There are some steps that schools
and government could follow, in order to increase their graduation rates and
also tackle all the obstacles such as mentioned below.
Expand
the access of course material to
improve the College Graduation Rate
In order to expand academic
success along with the accomplishment, students need to be prepared to enter
the class. On the other hand, a recent survey mentioned that about 85% of
college students acknowledged to postpone or even not acquiring the essential
course materials that would able to support them. For this reason, the schools
should figure out ways to expand the access of course material so that the
students could get them easier.
Apply a
better program of degree planning to
improve the College Graduation Rate
Another report by the Center for
Community College Student Engagement establishes a point that
counselling is considered as one of the furthermost fundamental services for students
that the colleges could provide. Those counsellors would able to help students in
setting up their goals, improve their academic plans, as well as lead the
students to the college services that are approved to be the most helpful for
them. On the other hand, the counsellors are every so often full of activity,
and thus, unable to provide each student with the personalized courtesy that they
require. Nowadays,
there are numbers of colleges which the graduation rates have gone up significantly
within current years have been dependent severely on the academic counsellors
besides than faculty advisers to provide the students with a richer perception
of the coursework that required for them to achieve a degree.
The government
should subsidize poor students to continue their education
A fact that has mentioned above
about the government who decreasing its grant or subsidies definitely influence
the percentage of poor students who drop out of college. The reason is obvious,
without any backup fund, then the students would not able to pay for their
college or any tuition fee.
Conclusion on improving the College Graduation
Rate
A school could be considered as a
high-quality college if there is a good rate of its graduation. This is aligned
with the fact that there is no student want to go to a college with a low
percentage of its graduation. Moreover, the graduation rate provides the
students with a clear vision to get to know how many students are completing
their degrees on time once they register. Until now, there is no specific cause of this
decline of graduation rates. However, there are lots of causal factors impact
graduation rates. For this, there are some recommendations on how the schools
and government could follow to increase their graduation rates and also tackle
all the obstacles since education is a fundamental backup for every student to
get for their future life.
References of
improving the College Graduation Rate
Castleman, B. L. & Long, B. T., 2016. Looking
beyond enrollment: The causal effect of need-based grants on college access,
persistence, and graduation. Journal of Labor Economics, pp. 1023-1073.
Juszkiewicz, J., 2017. Trends in community college enrollment and
completion data.
Kimbark, K., Peters, M. L. & Richardson, T., 2017. Effectiveness of
the student success course on persistence, retention, academic achievement, and
student engagement. Community College Journal of Research and Practice, pp.
124-138.