Higher Education With Lower Prices
Tuesday, September 26, 2006SUSIE GHARIB: Education Secretary Margaret Spellings announced plans today to shake up the U.S. college system. The idea is for schools to cut costs, making them more affordable and to make colleges accountable for helping students succeed. As Darren Gersh explains, that`s a critical factor, since many colleges and universities are getting students in the door, but not getting them out with diplomas.
DARREN GERSH, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT CORRESPONDENT: Don Brody didn`t think he`d be packing boxes for a living. He had hoped he would be a systems engineer by now. But college didn`t work out the way he planned. After a strong start to his first semester at George Mason University, Brody came down with mononucleosis.
DON BRODY, FORMER STUDENT, GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY: I was out for two weeks. I couldn`t really do anything and when I tried to get back in the swing of things, my teachers weren`t very lenient with me turning in work late.
GERSH: He also admits that when he wasn`t sick, he was having a little too much fun. But Brody says he still wasn`t getting the support he needed from the school and tuition was adding up, so he dropped out.
BRODY: After my grades rolled downhill first semester, I kind of lost motivation.
GERSH: George Mason`s provost Peter Stearns is working to keep students like Brody from falling through the cracks. When Stearns came to campus eight years ago, the school was losing about a quarter of its freshman class each year and was graduating only about half of its students in four to six years.
PETER STEARNS, PROVOST, GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY: It was pretty obvious that areas like university life, areas like advising, areas like the range of majors available to students, all of these things need attention.
GERSH: So the school has tried to do a better job advising students and has made it much easier for them to switch majors and still graduate on time. Now George Mason only loses about 17 percent of its freshman class and has bumped its graduation rate up to 60 percent. That may still sound low, but in fact it`s about the national average. Statistics show that nationally only about two thirds of college students graduate in six years. Less than half graduate in four. And at community colleges, less than a third of the students who say they want a degree get one. Education analyst Kevin Carey says it`s time governors and state lawmakers hold public universities to a higher standard.
KEVIN CAREY, RESEARCHER, EDUCATION SECTOR: Schools have no financial incentives to graduate students. All the finances are based on enrollment. So as long as you have enough new freshman coming in the door, it doesn`t really matter if they ever graduate or not. That doesn`t mean that they don`t care. It doesn`t mean that they don`t want their students to graduate. It just means that their students don`t have to graduate.
GERSH: Financial aid is an obvious place to start. Scholarships and loans are not keeping up with increases in tuition.
BRODY: When someone my age has to pay for everything on their own, I guess I could go in and look for scholarships and financial aid and stuff like that, but I still have to work full time to support myself, so that only leaves me a certain amount of time I can go to class.
GERSH: But money isn`t the only reason so many students drop out. Many high schools don`t properly prepare students for college. Experts say colleges also need to improve the quality of their teaching and make drop out prevention a higher priority.
CAREY: The best way to keep a student in college is to help them succeed.
GERSH: Colleges argue graduation rates are a bit better than they appear. Dropout statistics don`t catch students who finish up elsewhere, or who come back to school after a few years off. Don Brody says he`s still taking some classes part-time at the local community college and in six months he plans to join the Air Force, which he hopes will help him complete his bachelor`s degree.
BRODY: It would be tough to do anything in the real world without a college degree, I mean, now especially if you don`t have a master`s degree, you`re still limited on the jobs that you can go into.
GERSH: A professor of literature might call it a tragedy. As a degree becomes an economic necessity, many students continue to leave college with their graduation dreams marked incomplete. Darren Gersh, NIGHTLY BUSINESS REPORT, Washington.
