I once worked with a young woman who was smart, kind and industrious. Her success seemed assured, except for one thing. She had to drop out of college and could not afford to get back in.
That’s more than 10 percent of the population. Many are worse off than they would have been if they hadn’t enrolled. “Dropouts are nearly twice as likely to be unemployed as college grads,” Kirp said, “and they are four times more likely to default on student loans, which wrecks their credit and shrinks their career options.”
Not all of us need college. Some abandon higher education for sensible reasons, including lack of interest in what they are studying. Even the best-run colleges cannot prevent withdrawals caused by illness or injury.
But for those who want to stay in college, Kirp’s book, “The College Dropout Scandal,” identifies some places where dropout rates are being reduced. Some campuses have discovered that if they provide frequent and pertinent advice and support — particularly to freshmen — and show them how to overcome their doubts and weaknesses, it makes a difference.
The Education Trust, a nonprofit education advocacy organization, labeled Wayne State University a “Hall of Shame” institution in a 2017 report on black student success. Its overall six-year graduation rate was 33 percent, barely half that of similar schools. Just one in 10 black students earned degrees. By using new methods that aim to encourage students to stay, Wayne State’s overall rate is up to 47 percent and its black graduation rate has reached about 20 percent — not great but an improvement.
What works, Kirp concluded from studying several campuses, is enabling “students to recognize that they are full-fledged members of a community that takes them seriously as individuals.” My former colleague thought her school was interested only in her money. Programs that turn such feelings around have common elements, Kirp said.
They identify students in danger of leaving and get them information on programs that would help. They have trained advisers who make sure students know which courses they need for a degree. They contact students at the first sign of trouble, such as poor first-term grades. They stop requiring noncredit remedial courses that are usually unsuccessful, and give students real courses with extra time for tutoring.
They introduce newcomers to older students who have overcome freshmen fears. They promote the view that students are not judged by how good their grades are but by how much they improve.
The most interesting method Kirp highlighted was overhauling big lecture courses. Instead, instructors teach the material in small sections. That kind of teacher-student contact makes it easier for anxious first-year students to absorb big concepts.
To address weakness in math, common to new students, the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching has created a course called Statway to teach college-level statistics. It explains why the topics will be useful to students. It shows how to reason their way to an answer. It reassures them they can handle the material. An average two-year remedial course only gets 15 percent of students passing a college math course. Almost four times as many Statway students achieve that in a single year.
The leaders of this movement include Georgia State University, City University of New York, Rutgers University at Newark, University of Central Florida, Valencia College, the University of Texas and California State University at Long Beach.
At Georgia State 15 years ago, fewer than one out of three students graduated. That rate is now 54 percent. They’re not helping everyone, but they are getting better. That is a quality we should demand from more colleges than we do.
