FOUR YEAR DEGREES: A “DYING” BREED

Oxymorons have become a generally-accepted part of American culture. Accurate horoscope, airline food, casual Dress, good loser, long shorts, authentic reproductions, and now, “a four-year college degree”!!!

The latest polling data from the National Center for Education Statistics shows that only one-in-three of every freshman entering college in the Fall of 2009, will graduate by 2015!!

This explodes the prevailing myth that colleges are “four year degree experiences”; six-year degrees are more the norm.

This also contributes to the ever-increasing numbers of students who graduate with staggering amounts of student loans. The most recent statistics show that currently there is $85 Billion in student loans (as measured by the U.S, Department of Education); and most likely an ADDITIONAL $40 Billion in Home Equity loans that cannot be traced to college (but are being used to fund undergraduate studies).

On average, four-year colleges graduate fewer than 60 percent of their freshmen within six years---------but at many institutions graduation rates are far worse.

Examples abound: the University of Louisville (which enrolls over seventeen thousand undergraduates) has a 44 percent six-year graduation rate. At the University of Memphis, the rate is 34 percent and at the University of Alaska, Fairbanks only 25 percent of students graduate within six years.

Colleges and universities receive tens of billions of dollars directly AND indirectly from taxpayers every year, but the graduation rates suggest that many of these institutions are not serving their “customers” well-------------particularly in the area of up-front OR projected cost-of-attendance.