Commission backs graduation rates

• By JORDAN BLUM
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Oct 28, 2009 - Page: 1A

• Print
• Email
• Save
• Reprints
• Twitter
• Share

• Del.icio.us
• Digg
• Facebook
• Reddit
• 

LSU must increase its graduation rate to 75 percent by 2018 and all other public universities in the state must hit at least a 50 percent plateau, according to a recommendation approved Tuesday by a statewide college review commission.

Midlevel schools such as the University of Louisiana at Lafayette and the University of New Orleans would have to achieve 60 percent graduation rates by then, states the Louisiana Postsecondary Education Review Commission’s first approved recommendation.

The graduation rates are measured on a six-year basis, so the goals would apply to the freshman college class beginning in the fall 2012, currently high school sophomores.

Schools that achieve their goals would receive financial rewards for hitting their marks.

The recommendation also requests that universities toughen their admissions standards and eliminate admissions exceptions.

“This commission needs to be about hanging the target on the wall and not being timid about it,” said commission member David Voelker, who is a New Orleans area investor and oilman. “Fifty percent is a pretty modest graduation rate.”

LSU’s graduation rate is about 60 percent, while Southern University at New Orleans dips all the way down to single digits.

Voelker said the state colleges’ graduation rates — about 40 percent statewide — are “abysmal.” Graduation rates for Louisiana’s colleges lag well behind national and even regional averages.

“It’s time for Louisiana to say, ‘We’re mad as hell with these results, and we’re not going to take it anymore,’” said Mark Musick, commission member and Southern Regional Education Board president emeritus.

Commission chairman and state Sen. Ben Nevers, D-Bogalusa, said college dropouts represent a huge problem, especially because they are not being funneled into community or technical colleges.

“They drop off the map in this state. We lose them,” said Nevers, noting that 55 percent of the new jobs in this state require some college education, but not bachelor’s degrees.

The commission of in-state officials and out-of-state education experts is tasked with advising ways to improve higher education and cut the budget of state colleges by $146 million, as requested by Gov. Bobby Jindal.

The governor’s deputy chief of staff, Stephen Waguespack, said Jindal administration officials discussed setting graduation goals with Voelker and other commission members. Waguespack said college graduation rates are “unacceptable.”