BOULDER — University of Colorado regents this week will debate how to boost graduation rates, since the percentage of students who leave the flagship campus with a degree lags behind the national average.
About 67 percent of students graduated from CU’s Boulder campus within six years. Comparatively, 75 percent of students at universities nationwide — with similar missions to CU’s — graduated within the same time frame.
The in-depth review of graduation rates will be an ongoing topic for the regents, as there are several challenges surrounding keeping students in college and understanding what causes detours in their education.
University leaders will consider what more they can do to recognize students with slipping grades, and how to intervene to keep them in school. The issue of how long it takes to graduate also can be complicated for students as they balance rising tuition and financial pressures with wanting to study abroad or double-major so they are prepared for an increasingly global job market.
Michael Grant, CU’s vice chancellor for academic affairs, said there are several safety nets for students who are considered “at-risk” because they have weaker academic backgrounds.
Some students are placed in courses that go at a slower pace, with the course material spread over two semesters instead of one, he said. Tutors are available for free in the dorms and across the campus and summer academic programs help students prepare for the school year.
Scholarship students enrolled in “Lead Alliance” programs, which are intended for first-generation and minority students, have academic mentors. The graduate rate of students who participate in those dozen programs exceeds 90 percent, outpacing the campus-wide rate, Grant said.
It also takes CU students longer to graduate than their peers at other schools nationwide — 41 percent of CU students graduated in four years, compared to 48 percent across the country. But academic officials say that could be a good thing.
Internships, study abroad and double majors often require students to stay in school longer, but such work enriches their education.
“It’s some of our best students who take the longest to graduate,” Grant said.
CU student Marisa Dabice said she will take classes this summer so she can graduate within 4 1/2 years. As an international affairs major, she spent eight months studying and interning in Spain and returned fluent in Spanish.
Dabice, who is from Connecticut, has worked part-time jobs throughout college to help her family pay the out-of-state tuition and was a resident adviser in the dorms in exchange for free room and board. Tuition is locked for four years for out-of-state students, heightening the pressure for those students to graduate on time.
Dabice said that some of that stress was relieved when she successfully petitioned the school’s dean to keep her tuition flat for her final semester.
“Being an out of state student, there’s an increased pressure to try and graduate in four years,” she said.
The regents will consider what kinds of incentives — if any — there should be to increase graduation rates, according to a memo from Michael Poliakoff, vice president of academic affairs and research for the CU system. The board is scheduled to take the graduation issue up at its meeting Thursday on the Boulder campus.
The topic is a concern among higher-education officials nationwide, as students in the United States are notorious for dropping out of college, compared to their global peers, according to a report the regents will review. The U.S. college dropout rate is about 50 percent, compared to 30 percent internationally, according to the report, according to the Organization of Economic Cooperation and Development.
Regent Stephen Ludwig, who is the chairman of the academic affairs committee, said the board needs to explore the reasons why students aren’t finishing their degrees, and consider variables that might take them longer to reach graduation.
He said some students are slowed down because they change their majors after being exposed to a variety of topics in college.
“Do we expect an 18 year old to know what they want to do for the rest of their life?” Ludwig said.
