State must improve college graduation rate
In an editorial today, The Detroit News says Michigan needs to boost the graduation rate at Michigan colleges and universities.
The editorial says the state has rightly focused first on improving high school graduation rates, but says to really improve the economy, the state needs higher college graduation rates as well. The editorial says less-selective universities especially need to do a better job graduating students and puts Eastern Michigan University in Ypsilanti in that group.
"Take, for example, Michigan State University and Eastern Michigan University. MSU's graduation rate is 74 percent compared with Eastern Michigan's 39 percent, according to College Results Online," the editorial says.
The editorial says Gov. Jennifer Granholm needs to put real pressure on colleges and universities to improve.
"Granholm needs to play hardball with our public universities and use the carrots - and sticks - at her disposal to change this trend. Previously she has promised to do so, but we still have not seen her take such action, such as linking state budget allocations to college graduation rates."
Comments
Chuck Warpehoski
Tue, Sep 22, 2009 : 9:44 a.m.
I agree we need to improve our graduation rate. I think we also need to improve our graduate retention rate. What if Michigan were to split our in-state tuition savings and half the tuition savings applied to where you came from and half applied to where you lived after graduation? The difference between in-state and out-state tuition over 4 years is about $100,000. What if the in-state tuition savings was cut down so the in-state discount was only $50,000, and then you could get a $5,000 tuition rebate each year for up to ten years if you stayed in the state? That way we would be subsidizing people for staying in the state and contributing to the Michigan economy, not taking their degrees and leaving town.