UA graduation rate falls to 60.1%

Officials working to boost 6-year metric to 66% by 2015

The University of Arkansas at Fayetteville’s latest sixyear graduation rate is 60.1 percent, slightly down from last fall’s record 60.4 percent rate but still tracking favorably with universities nationally, according to a new report.

The rate is among a number of retention and graduation measures the university uses, and is considered the primary measure of academic success.

Each fall, UA follows a new group of first-time, fulltime, degree-seeking freshmen and tracks how many have graduated six years later, excluding transfer students. The six-year rate is also the main gauge the federal government uses to holduniversities accountable for efficiently spending taxpayer and tuition dollars to produce graduates.

The rate is more than just a number - it’s about doing what’s right by everyone, said Ro Di Brezzo, vice provost for academic affairs.

“It’s a drain on the student and the state when they don’t finish,” Di Brezzo said, addingthat the student risks being in debt with no degree. “The students, they may have left scholarship money on the table, and they may have taken out a loan.”

Arkansas officials have called for a doubling of Arkansans holding bachelor’s degrees by 2025 in order to attract more industries to the state.

For more than a decade, UA-Fayetteville has been working to improve its graduation rates. Its top institutional goals include increasing the six-year rate to 66 percent by 2015 and to 70 percent by its sesquicentennial in 2021.

“I remain optimistic that we will be successful,” Provost Sharon Gaber said in an email Tuesday.

The university’s more recent efforts have included adding academic advisers, implementing new advising software, creating a new class to help prepare students for the rigors of university life and introducing a December graduation, she said.

“All of these efforts seem to have a positive impact,” said Gaber, also UA’s vice chancellor of academic affairs.

One key factor that helped the 2007-13 class graduate at a high rate was the first-year retention rate, which measures how many students make it to sophomore year, officials said.

“When you look at that data, you can see that of the freshmen that came in 2007, we retained 80.7 after the first year,” Gaber said. “So, I think the explanation is how well we do with freshmen retention.”

Suzanne McCray, vice provost for enrollment, said projections she’s seen show the university should be able to hit the 66 percent mark if not by 2015, then by 2016.

The 60.1 percent graduation rate compares well with the 52.9 percent graduation rate posted a decade earlier. The intervening years, however, had seen rates go up and down, rather than consistently upward, as university administrators would like to see.

“We’re still above 60, and that’s good,” McCray said.

By 2010, the Fayetteville campus tracked close to the national average for all fouryear universities. Students who studied there in the six years between 2004-10 graduated at a 57.9 percent rate, compared with 58 percent nationally, as tracked by the National Center for Education Statistics. It finds that completion rates tend to be highest for private, nonprofit universities, followed by public universities like UA, then private for-profits.

In 2011, the most recent figures on the national center’s website, the national graduation rate for the 2005-11 class was 59 percent; the rate for public universities was 57 percent. UA posted a 59 percent rate for that period.

According to the national center, graduation rates are calculated to meet requirements of the 1990 Student Right to Know Act. The law directed postsecondary institutions to report the percentage of students who complete their program within 150 percent of the normal time for completion, or six years for students studying for a bachelor’s degree.

“Students who transfer and complete a degree at another institution are not included as completers in these rates,” according to the center’s site.

UA is trying to address issues that can interfere with students’ success, McCray said.

“We understand that students who have Pell Grants are more at risk, so we’re reaching out to students who are on Pell or other needbased aid,” she said.

For instance, in the fall 2007 freshman class, the graduation rate for Pell Grant students was 56.2 percent, and 42.6 percent if they needed both Pell and Stafford grants. Students who needed neither graduated at a 64.5 percent rate.

McCray credited a class created by Di Brezzo that began this fall, University Perspectives, with the potential to have a dramatic effect on the fall 2013 freshman class’ six-year rate.

The class targets topics crucial to student success, such as financial literacy, critical-thinking skills, study skills, academic advising and handling stress, Di Brezzo said. Academic colleges that offered similar courses have enjoyed high graduation rates, she said.

Northwest Arkansas, Pages 7 on 11/06/2013

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