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Officials at SUNY Canton, SUNY Potsdam say reports showing graduation rates as low as 32% could mislead public

Posted 4/16/16

By CRAIG FREILICH Administrators at SUNY Potsdam and SUNY Canton are concerned that a SUNY report showing graduation rates as low as 32 percent might mislead the public. The report shows a four-year …

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Officials at SUNY Canton, SUNY Potsdam say reports showing graduation rates as low as 32% could mislead public

Posted

By CRAIG FREILICH

Administrators at SUNY Potsdam and SUNY Canton are concerned that a SUNY report showing graduation rates as low as 32 percent might mislead the public.

The report shows a four-year graduation rate of 31.8 percent and a six-year rate of 50.7 percent at SUNY Potsdam. At SUNY Canton, reporting on students seeking a bachelor’s degree, the rate is 25.0 percent after four years and 32.1 percent after six.

That puts SUNY Potsdam in 10th place among its peer group of 13 “comprehensive” colleges and SUNY Canton in last place among its eight “technology sector” peers, as of 2012.

Earlier reports show similar standings. The 2013 report is viewable at system.suny.edu/media/suny/content-assets/documents/institutional-research/2013_09_BOTAA_GradRates.pdf

But SUNY Canton’s Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs Douglas Scheidt said the raw figures don’t give a complete picture of the actual rate at which SUNY Canton students graduate.

SUNY Potsdam Executive Vice-President Rick Miller says the SUNY figures can be easily misconstrued if the factors that cause students to leave aren’t taken into account -- family concerns needing attention, not enough money to continue, inability to keep up with the work.

Scheidt points out that those statistics only track students who arrive as first-semester freshmen in four-year programs and stay through graduation by the end of six years.

Scheidt said those numbers include no transfers in or out of the schools, students who arrive with some credits, and those who might move in or out of SUNY Canton’s two-year and four-year programs.

“If bachelor’s degree students change their minds on the second day to a different program, they’re reported as not graduating” in those numbers, he said.

“Our transfer-out rate is 32 percent. That’s a success” when you consider that the one-third of students who leave SUNY Canton add to the official count of non-graduates but might very well have graduated from another school later, he said.

Improvement Sought

Miller admits he would like to see a higher graduation rate at SUNY Potsdam. He said SUNY Potsdam has set a goal of a 62 percent six-year graduation rate.

If so many students were just leaving their college educations behind when they leave Potsdam or Canton, that might be a waste, Miller said, particularly “if we were setting students up not to succeed.” But because so many move on to places that will take then closer to their goals, “then I don’t look at it as a waste of resources. What we really want is to be known for our quality and for providing the experience we want to deliver.

“Can we do better? Yes. Should we? Yes. Do we need to? Yes,” but that would be the case anyway, Miller said.

The statistical reports with those graduation rate figures, the federal Integrated Post-Secondary Education Data System, or IPEDS, do not do a good job of explaining where the people who leave their cohort go and how they do, both Scheidt and Miller said.

They suggested that a newer database, Student Achievement Measures, or the SAM “success rate” figures, give a more accurate picture of a college’s role in the success or failure of the education of students, largely by following students who transfer in or out of an institution.

“Usual measures of student progress and completion, including government-led efforts, usually underreport student achievement because they do not account for an increasingly mobile student population,” a paragraph on the web site www.studentachievementmeasure.org says.

One In Five Graduates Elsewhere

They point out that one in five students who achieve graduation with a degree do so at a school other than the one where they started. Tracking those students can yield a “success rate” that would be higher than either school’s conventional graduation rate measurement, which they refer to as the “federal graduation rate,” also known among SUNY schools as SUNY data brief.

The SAM statistics are not perfect, but do capture the fates of some students not included in the IPEDS reports. SAM has been operating for about three years and continues to include figures from more and more colleges as they sign up to participate.

A sample SAM report on SUNY Canton reveals the following information:

Among first-time full-time freshman bachelor’s degree students in the 2009 cohort, 36 percent graduated at SUNY Canton, 29 percent transferred, 1 percent were still enrolled at SUNY Canton, which they considered to be a “success rate” of 66 percent. That does not capture 100 percent of students, nor does it reveal how many who transferred out eventually earned a degree, but that is something SAM is hoping to capture better as time goes on and more institutions join their effort.

Similarly, another SAM report indicates that full-time students seeking a bachelor’s degree who transferred into SUNY Canton graduated there at a rate of 55 percent, 14 percent transferred elsewhere, and 2 percent were still enrolled, a 71 percent “success” rate.

“Part of the mission we fulfill is getting students from one institution to another,” when a student might arrive without a declared major and will get a start on a degree in the North Country before transferring to another school that better matches the goals they have decided on, Miller said.

“We know we might be a starting point for them,” Miller said. “We understand they might be making choices and decisions which might give them ways of thinking about changes in career goals and education.”

“We don’t consider that as an institutional failure,” Scheidt said, even though those students will be counted as not graduating.

Missions Vary

“Our goal is to guide them in achieving a degree or certificate. That’s our reason for existence,” Scheidt said.

“The easiest way to increase our graduation rate is to raise our acceptance requirements,” he said, “but that’s not what we want see at SUNY Canton. We take a wide spectrum, a wide variety of students.” There is no community college in St. Lawrence County, and “we are the only associate’s-degree granting college in St. Lawrence County.”

That puts SUNY Canton in the position of accepting students more likely to be in short-term transition, possibly experimenting with college to a greater extent than those at a school with mainly four-year programs. SUNY Canton’s increasing emphasis on offering four-year degrees could be a bonus for those students.

“SUNY Canton offers greater access and more choice with four-year programs,” said SUNY Potsdam’s Miller.

Both schools are constantly trying to find ways to increase what they call their “success rate.”

SUNY Canton recently announced the formation of a Ready Center that brings their three departments -- Advising and First-Year Programs, Career Services, and International Programs – into one office area to streamline the delivery of services. They had previously made a similar move by combining several key administrative offices in one place. There, students have access to the Registrar’s Office, Financial Aid Office and College Association services.

“If we can change any of our practices -- admissions, support services, and teaching that can serve them better – we will,” Scheidt said.

Both schools acknowledge their obligation to extend the opportunity that a college education can bestow as broadly as they can without failing students.

“If in the admissions review process they encounter a student who might not be able to succeed, but they see strong motivation in that student and the potential for success,” Miller said, “if we can provide the right support mechanism up front and the student becomes a partner in it, we have a chance. It can’t be ‘We’re here and you’re the customer.’ It has to be a partnership.”