The one thing that’s more difficult than getting into college, is getting out.

This is by far the thing that college access researchers have the most difficult time communicating to families and by far the thing that is most important for families to know:

The majority of colleges in the US do not graduate students on-time or at all.

I think the reason most people don’t believe us when we say this is because it’s like saying most restaurants in the country don’t serve meals. You’re thinking that it’s part of the thing that they should do: graduate students. I agree. It should be. But it isn’t. And it’s systemic meaning there isn’t anything individual students can do to change this statistic except to be aware and then not go to that college. If I told you that most restaurants do not serve meals but they will charge you way too much for the meal you aren’t going to get, would you still go?

If I told you that most restaurants do not serve meals but they will charge you way too much for the meal you aren’t going to get, would you still go? Get in line to get in? Pay a bunch of money just so they can tell you they don’t have a meal for you?

When I phrase it that way, you probably said absolutely not. But most of you do anyway. Students still apply in record numbers to schools that will not graduate them on-time or at all.

Why don’t colleges graduate students on-time?

When a college is impacted, it means they have admitted more students than they can serve. Students may be waiting for a graduation requirement to become available or they were not an academic fit and needed to be remediated. This means that they took some time to reach the college-level coursework.
Typically when students are taking too long, they lose interest in school and leave. This also means that even if you are academically prepared, you are still having to wait for classes and other academic services.
Similar to being academically impacted, colleges are also admit students who cannot afford the tuition. Students will naturally dropout when they cannot pay the fees. This then means colleges can't afford to pay faculty, especially if the college is dependent on tuition dollars. Faculty leave and we return to being academically impacted since there are not enough classes for the students who need them. This means that even if you have the financial means to attend the college, you still do not have the resources available to you to graduate.
This also feeds into a myth that people are either inherently smart or inherently not smart. All students need support services. We often times see that the more motivated a student is, the more support they need. And as the use of technology increases, the ability for students to communicate verbally and in writing, with teams and in classes, decreases. Even the most selective campuses are not prepared to teach students about executive functioning skills that are necessary.

The above also demonstrates why it is so important for you to consider graduation rates in your search. It should be a statistics problem. This is for all my budding data scientists.

School X admits 90% of students with similar grades and test scores as you. It graduates 5% of them on-time.

This means it does not have the infrastructure to support you.

This school is probably severely impacted and might even be getting ready to close. Hard pass.

School Y admits 40% of students with similar grades and test scores as you. It graduates 70% of them on-time.

This means it does have the infrastructure to support you.

This school is great! But you’ve probably never heard of it. They’re spending money to make sure students graduate on-time, not on marketing. That’s a Bridge to College school.

School X admits 5% of students with similar grades and test scores as you. It graduates 95% of them on-time.