Improving College Completion Rates and Cutting Times to Completion

Abstract

While college can be an ideal opportunity for academic, social, and professional development, many students enter the post-secondary environment unprepared and without a good idea of what they want to do in life. Based on data from the National Center for Education Statistics (NCES), there is both a decline in college completion rates and an increase in the time to graduate, making college a very expensive endeavor. Other good options exist these include vocational/technical schools and apprenticeship programs for students who are not interested in an academic environment, doing volunteer work, joining the workforce, and taking a “13 year” or attending a community college for those who are not quite ready for the rigors that a 4 year college demands. To help students make the decision of whether or not to attend college and to make them aware of the challenges that higher education entails, we have designed a brochure that gives high school students many of the cold, hard facts of current college enrollment and completion rates and discuss some ideas for alternative options to college.