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GRAD RATES ON THE RISE BY T E D M A N T H E • V I CE PR E S I D E N T S T U D E N T A FFA I R S
One marker of success for colleges and universities is the four-year graduation rate. Graduation rate refers to the time in which a student enters and then completes a degree at a four-year college or university, usually expressed as a percentage of enrolled students who complete their degree in four years. On the surface, it would appear that a high number is good, and low number is bad. This, of course is true, but it’s actually a little more complicated than that. The official graduation rate keeps record of full-time, first-time students who start in the fall and graduate four years later at the same institution they started at. When the percentage is calculated for a single college or university, all transfer students are excluded, whether transferring out to complete at another college, or transferring in to complete their degree. So, those students who eventually do complete a degree, maybe even on time, but at a school they transferred into, don’t count in the college’s graduation rate number. Regardless of the methodology, the calculation is an industry standard. Bethany’s graduation rate has been moving upward for over a decade and the most recent calculated rate for first-time, fulltime students who began seeking a bachelor’s degree at BLC in fall 2015 is 51%, exceeding the College’s 11-year average of 42%. The five-year graduation rate for students who started in 2014 is 60%, exceeding Bethany’s 10-year average of 49%. In other words, 60% of students who started at Bethany in 2014 stayed and completed their bachelor’s degree by 2019. For comparison, four-year graduation rates at other regional colleges range from 25% at large state schools to 54% at flagship research institutions. Some highly selective colleges achieve higher rates with percentages that reach into the 70s or even low 80s. Graduation rates are tracked by the government and are publicly available for any institution, along with lots of other institutional data on the National Center for Education Statistics College Navigator website (note – official numbers have not yet been updated with these most recent graduation rates). This increase in graduation rates is great news, and demonstrates Bethany’s attention to personal mentoring and overall student success. 6
J U LY 2020
