Good, better, best: Regent universities improve grad rates, but want more progress

Graduation rates at Iowa's three regent universities are well above the national average, but school officials say improvement ranks high on their to-do lists.

Despite looking good against the national average, the University of Iowa and Iowa State University rank near the bottom of their self-identified 11-member peer groups for six-year graduation rates. The University of Northern Iowa fares better, ranking near the top in its peer group.

The six-year graduation rate is a national measure of how many first-time students in an entering class graduate within six years.

The UI, ISU and UNI have improved graduation rates by 3 to 5 percentage points over the past 15 years, but more must be done, Board of Regents President David Miles said. More than six of every 10 students who started at the universities in fall 2002 graduated within six years.

“We clearly want it to improve,” he said.

Miles, of West Des Moines, wants the board to set specific goals for retention and graduation rate improvement. Tying such measures to salaries or bonuses of university leaders is not something Miles favors, though.

“... I don't think we need to, because it's very clear to me that the leadership of our universities are on board,” he said.

President Obama recently setting a goal for the United States to be the world leader in college graduates by 2020.

Leaders at the UI, ISU and UNI - and officials at several private colleges in Eastern Iowa - said they know the one thing that most impacts rates: retention from the first to second year.

“That's where colleges see the most attrition,” said John Harp, vice president for student affairs at Cornell College in Mount Vernon. “They have the qualifications, they were admitted, but their motivation levels aren't where they need to be.”

Colleges target those students through programs designed to engage them in campus life and academics.

Coe College in Cedar Rapids is seeing success with changes to enhance the first-year experience, said Marie Baehr, vice president for academic affairs. While first-to-second-year retention has improved, it takes a few years to see the impact on grad rates, she said.

Several programs used on a small scale at the UI are working, Provost Wallace Loh said. There are living learning communities, where students live in the dorms and take classes with 30 to 35 others in their major. The UI also has linked courses, where the same students move through courses together, and freshmen seminars, where no more than 16 freshmen learn from tenured faculty.

The UI's most recent first-year retention rate was 83 percent. Based on exit data, officials know they lose few of those students to academic troubles - only 3 percent to 5 percent, Loh said. Rather, lack of engagement is the big problem. Students don't feel connected academically or socially.

“This is not rocket science, by any means. The answer is very simple,” Loh said. “The problem is, the cost is enormous.”

The UI will offer 100 freshmen seminars this fall. That covers only half of freshmen, though. Expanding to 200 seminars to include all freshmen would cost about $2,500 per seminar, he said.

Regents President Miles hopes to apply for federal stimulus money to expand such programs.

“Those initiatives take our larger institutions and make them smaller in scale in terms of the student experience,” he said.