College for One and All

The Fiscal Times has a list of the 11 worst-performing public colleges in the U.S.  In this case performance is measured by the percentage of entrants who graduate in six years.  They do acknowledge that the numbers are a little tricky; those who transfer to another school are counted as dropouts.  

The numbers seem unbelievable.  The worst college is Southern University at New Orleans where the graduation rate is 4%.  You read that right - 4%.  You have to wonder whether many of these students were victims of the philosophy that everyone must go to college.  Tuition is low, only $3,906 for Louisianans and 75% of the students got Pell grants.  And the school admitted less than half of the applicants.  Could the fact that the average SAT score of those admitted was 715 have any bearing on the graduation rate?  The national average is 1500.

The other ten colleges listed are not much better.  The article does point out that in terms of the percentage of college dropouts world-wide we ranked dead last.  Should this not tell us something?  I suspect that in most other countries young kids are not 'forced' into going to college.