EDITORIAL – Telling graduation rate statistics released

There are pros and cons to every situation.

For a college or university, the advantage to… There are pros and cons to every situation.

For a college or university, the advantage to the growing population of full-time super-seniors is monetary: Students who stay longer are literally buying their time. The disadvantage of having a large population of fifth- and sixth-year seniors is that it becomes more difficult to report a desirable graduation rate to prospective students and their families.

According to government statistics released by the Education Trust, a Washington advocacy group for low-income and minority students, graduation rates in 1,395 of the nation’s public and private four-year colleges and universities vary considerably — even among comparable schools. Schools were compared by 11 factors, including size, selectivity, SAT scores and the percentage of students who are eligible for Pell grants.

Kevin Carey, the Trust’s director of policy research, said high-performing colleges focus on offering first- and second-year students assistance with academic and social problems while urging administrators to take responsibility for graduation rates and emphasizing that professors teach rather than do research.

These statistics are available at www.collegeresults.org, where it is reported that in 2003, 64.7 percent of Pitt’s full-time undergraduates graduated within six years. According to the site, Pitt’s graduation rate has been steadily increasing since 2000. Not that bad.

However, when compared to what the Education Trust deems similar institutions to Pitt — University of California, San Diego; University of Michigan, Ann Arbor and University of California, Los Angeles — Pitt has room for improvement.

Students are more likely to graduate with close monitoring and supervision, things that tend to be found at a small college such as Alcorn State University where graduation rates recently increased when each freshman and sophomore was assigned a counselor, class sizes were reduced and all faculty members were required to teach at least one freshman class.

At Pitt, there are few instances of institutional hand-holding for students. While the counseling, academic support and career counseling centers are available for all students, students actually have to go and use them.

Pitt’s School of Arts and Sciences advisers aren’t counselors either. Many students see them as seldom as once a semester — clearly not enough face-to-face time to develop a relationship, just enough time to get the job done.

At Pitt, college is what students make of it. That said, there are those who will not keep up if there is not a constant push or pull in the direction of graduation. If Pitt wants to boast better graduation rates, it should do all it can to create a user-friendly environment for students.

For example, freshman studies classes are a wonderful program for first-year students as long as students don’t look back on that one-credit class and consider it useless. The class should be relevant by offering information about selecting a major or choosing which courses to take pass/fail.

And many professors at Pitt are an active part of a research community. It is an advantage to learn from a person invested in the current debates surrounding a certain subject.

And one simple way to make Pitt a better place: Clean up Thackeray Hall. As trivial as this may seem to some, the ill-placed brochures, forms, newsletters and papers in Thackeray are a major turn off.

Why are the add/drop forms located two floors above where the add/drop procedure takes place? Why are course descriptions not placed on the same floor as the course listings book? Is it an effort to encourage student exercise by climbing two flights for each visit, or is it a weeding-out process where only the strong will survive and graduate?

Students really don’t mind doing what is necessary to succeed. It’s the extra hoop-jumping that can drive an undergraduate crazy — to the point of transferring or dropping out. Things like scheduling appointments for the sole purpose of making another appointment can make a student’s skin crawl.

Pitt must be looking into the impact of its programs and support centers. Questions of effectiveness have to be considered on a daily basis, unbeknownst to the students who will reap the benefits, so that the ever-changing student body will be properly serviced. Pitt must be making the adjustments necessary to keep students here, just long enough to graduate that is.