Sixty percent of full-time students who enrolled in a public Arkansas university for the first time in fall 2006 had not received a degree from that institution six years later, according to a report by the Arkansas Department of Higher Education.
The state’s average six year graduation rate, used to track its progress against other states, reached 40.8 percent in 2012. That’s an increase over recent years - the rate was 39.5 percent last year and 37 percent five years ago - but the rate must continue to steadily grow for Arkansas to reach Gov. Mike Beebe’s goal of doubling the state’s degree holders by 2025.
“It’s not just a goal,” said Shane Broadway, interim director of the Arkansas Department of Higher Education. “From an economic standpoint for Arkansas, it’s a necessity.”
After public college and university chancellors and presidents signed a pledge to help meet Beebe’s goal, they continued ratcheting up admissions standards, creating new student support programs and exploring ways to retain struggling students to help them earn degrees.
Those efforts are evident in the most recent statistics, college leaders said, and the growth trend should continue as more students are affected.
Among universities, the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville had the highest six-year graduation rate, with 60 percent of the 2,725 first-time, full-time students who enrolled in the fall 2006 semester earning a degree within the next six years, the report said.
The University of Arkansas at Little Rock had the lowest of the four-year institutions, with 19.3 percent of 605 students graduating in the same time period.UALR’s leadership have attributed its lower graduation rates to relatively high enrollment of nontraditional students, who take longer to complete a degree and often transfer between campuses before graduating.
The state’s 22 community colleges gauge success with a three-year graduation rate. Rates are typically lower at two-year campuses because many students transfer to four year institutions before completing a degree or take courses part time during semesters so that they can balance work with class, which extends the time it takes to graduate, leaders said.
Of the 8,337 first-time, full time students who enrolled in the state’s community colleges in fall 2009, 19.6 percent had earned an associate’s degree, technical certificate or certificate of proficiency within three years, the report said.
Among community colleges, the three-year graduation rate was highest at Arkansas State University-Mountain Home, where 40.2 percent of 214 students earned a degree or certificate three years after enrolling. It was lowest at Mid-South Community College, where 10 percent of 200 enrolled students earned a degree or certificate in the same time.
Economic development and government leaders have said Arkansas’ relatively low number of degree holders and relatively poor graduation rates affect the state’s ability to attract new businesses and recruit highly skilled employees.
Arkansas ranked third from the bottom compared with other states and the District of Columbia in the proportion of its population 25 and older who had completed a bachelor’s degree, according to the U.S.Census Bureau’s American Community Survey.
In 2011, the latest year for which numbers are available, 20.3 percent of the state’s 25-and-older population had completed a bachelor’s degree.
That rate was ahead only of Mississippi and West Virginia, and far below the District of Columbia, which had 52.5 percent of its population who had attained at least a four-year degree.
The national average was 28.5 percent.
Arkansas’ public universities must increase the rate at which they award bachelor’s degrees by 4.73 percent a year to double the total number they award annually by 2025, said Tara Smith, director of institutional finance for the Higher Education Department.
Arkansas’ public institutions awarded 13,988 bachelor’s degrees in the 2011-12 school year, 6.7 percent more than they awarded in the previous year and 21.5 percent more than they awarded five years prior, according to another report by the Higher Education Department.
The 4.73 percent growth rate is a part of a new “performance funding” formula that provide less state funding to universities that can’t meet goals related to areas such as graduation and retention of students. Under the same formula, a community college must increase the number of associate’s degrees it awards each year to retain funding.
Higher Education Coordinating Board members, meeting in Hope last week, expressed some hesitation about the 2025 goal.
“I wonder if it’s feasible,” board member Joe Bennett said.
Bennett said he didn’t want colleges and universities to relax their academic standards to increase degrees.
Broadway said he doesn’t think that will happen. At this point, institutions are showing potential to meet the goal, he said.
“I think it’s attainable,” he said.
Arkansas, Pages 13 on 04/28/2013