Ashley Smith’s article, the “Noncompletion Success in California” on our class website caught my interest. After all, one of the markers of a successful college is a high completion rate. If many students are not making it to graduation, applicants often assume that the college does not offer adequate support. So colleges will often take certain measures to discourage dropouts and avoid getting a bad reputation. For instance, when I was registering for classes freshman year, I learned about the “Learning Community” system. The “learning community” refers to two linked classes that are for incoming freshman. In other words, if a student is to take a certain English section, they are required to take a certain history section as well. The hope is that students will have more time to connect with the other students, forge friendships and offer support. Specifically within Macaulay, incoming freshmen are paired up with an upperclassman that will hopefully address their concerns and become a mentor and a friend.
Smith’s article challenges the notion that dropout rates are such a strong indicator of the success of a college. Some students intend to take only a few courses to broaden their knowledge of a certain subject and make them into more competitive job applicants. And the numbers show that these “skills builders” (so termed because they are taking these few classes to brush up on their skills in a particular area) are in fact seeing returns with a significant median wage gain of 13.6 percent. Clearly there is monetary value in each individual course (that is, earning potential) and the cynical idea that bosses just want a piece of paper may in fact be a misconception. This, of course, is in addition to the value a course has in making a you into a more well-rounded thought-out individual, but in the case of skill builders, earning potential is the driving force.
It’s probably safe to assume that those who dropped out in middle of a course would not be considered a “noncompletion success,” but other than that, we have no easy way to distinguish between students who intended to only take a few classes and those who dropped out because of lack of support. As a student in Brooklyn College, I am presumably more familiar with the student body than an applicant would be, so I see beyond cold hard statistics, but an applicant is likely relying on these statistics when making their decision about where to go for college. I would say that an applicant’s best bet is probably to talk to someone who is already enrolled and ask them how the college faculty and administration works with students in completing the requirements needed to graduate (if that ‘s what the applicant’s end goal is).
On a side note, I have found these skill builders to be particularly interesting to speak to and have in a classroom. They are often older than the typical 18-24 year old student and have had more experience in the work force as well as in other areas of life. It’s actually quite ironic because while these students may bring down the reputation of a school on a web search, they are often a source of pride within the college since they add to the college’s diversity.
Interesting perspective, and one that rarely comes up in the discussions about non-completion, so congratulations on your being able to see some of the subtleties here. You are right that sometimes, people are not here for the degree, but mostly BC has staked its success on enrollment of “college-aged” students (i.e. 18-22 or so) and has failed to develop much for returning adults, though we used to have programs we’ve closed. Ditto on veterans. Non-degree students do enroll, but I’m not sure if we know much about them. I’ve never heard a discussion of why they are here and whether they are getting what they came for, which would be an interesting thing to do some surveys about — to see if we are actually serving them or just making assumptions that everyone is here for the degree.