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11 Public Universities with the Worst Graduation Rate (Slide Show)
thefiscaltimes.com ^ | unknown | no byline

Posted on 09/29/2012 8:50:54 PM PDT by ransomnote

Slide show at link. Among the heart breaking details included in the slide show is the % of students receiving Pell Grants at these colleges.


TOPICS: Miscellaneous
KEYWORDS: college; education; halfbaked; junkstatistics; pellgrant; university; yawn
Here's the worst of the 11 and a few relevant details:

Southern University at New Orleans, Louisiana Graduation rate: 4% Undergraduates: 2,590 Median SAT score: 715 Pell Grant recipients: 75.8%

So 75% of students are recipients of pell grants and 4% of students are actually graduating!? Couldn't we require schools receiving Pell Grant monies to maintain a certain minimum graduation rate? Wait, that would "encourage" fraud. Median SAT scores are 715 at this school...

1 posted on 09/29/2012 8:50:57 PM PDT by ransomnote
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To: ransomnote

I was scratching my head until I realized the SAT score was cumulative... been a while since I took them...

Couldn’t qualify for a Pell Grant. Have met some “graduates” since who couldn’t compose a clear sentence in English.

Guess I’m doomed to the underclass.


2 posted on 09/29/2012 9:03:07 PM PDT by One Name (Ultimately, the TRUTH is a razor's edge and no man can sit astride it.)
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To: ransomnote
Median SAT scores are 715 at this school

Wait a minute, is that the total score? If I recall correctly, the highest possible total is 1600. A reasonably smart 6th grader could make 715.

3 posted on 09/29/2012 9:03:20 PM PDT by giotto
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To: giotto

came across this description of SAT scores:

http://collegeapps.about.com/od/sat/a/sat-score-explanation.htm


4 posted on 09/29/2012 9:12:56 PM PDT by ransomnote
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To: giotto

Actually, it’s been revamped, so that the new maximum score is 2400.


5 posted on 09/29/2012 9:16:25 PM PDT by Shadow44
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To: Shadow44

No, it’s still 1600.

Here’s an article describing how it was “recentered” in 1995.

http://www.nytimes.com/1995/07/26/us/when-close-is-perfect-even-4-errors-can-t-prevent-top-score-on-new-sat.html

And here’s a description of the current SAT scale:
http://sat.collegeboard.org/scores/understanding-sat-scores


6 posted on 09/29/2012 9:22:32 PM PDT by ransomnote
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To: ransomnote

The new tests were made in 2005, when the 2400 scale came into play. I remember because I got an 1860, and that meant nothing to adults and older people and I had to convert it to a 1600 scale number. 2000 was the new barrier to break for bragging rights.

Apparently minor adjustments were made in late 2008, but I was in college then.


7 posted on 09/29/2012 9:30:23 PM PDT by Shadow44
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To: ransomnote

That’s an interesting mixture of historically black colleges/universities (Southern, Texas Southern, Coppin State) and satellite campuses of larger state institutions (the two Kent State satellites, Purdue, etc.).

}:-)4


8 posted on 09/29/2012 9:34:20 PM PDT by Moose4 (...and walk away.)
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To: ransomnote
Some of those listed are branch campuses--perhaps their best students transfer to the main campus after two years.

It isn;'t clear if they are talking about 4-year graduation rates or 6-year rates. There are so many students who need more time because they are working or have families that a lot of schools track the 6-year figure (after 6 years the number of additional students who manage to complete a degree apparently isn't very high)

9 posted on 09/29/2012 9:49:46 PM PDT by Verginius Rufus
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To: Shadow44
"2000 was the new barrier to break for bragging rights."

I got a 2230. I was in the top 25% in the SAT II tests as well. The SAT doesn't really mean anything. Its all about gaming the system; knowing which ones to skip, picking answers by elimination, how long each question should take depending on how close it is to the end of the section... I spent a couple weeks beforehand studying the probability that any given answer choice would be the correct one (I recall that D and E are the most common, I think?).

And I've since discovered that the SAT is nothing like tests in college. And I'm sure tests in college have nothing to do with reality.

10 posted on 09/29/2012 10:00:34 PM PDT by Wyrd bið ful aræd
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To: ransomnote

Wow, some of those are just plain awful! I can see a rationale in maybe a few cases. Sometimes extension campuses are easier to get into than the main one, and folks will enroll for just one year in the hopes of transferring to the main campus. That sort of thing.

For the most part, though, this is ridiculous, if not entirely surprising. I saw a lot of crap in grad school (I was a TA) from both the university side and students who tried to hustle the aid system. Universities hate to have students wash out, but if they wash out past the refund deadline, it stings a *whole* lot less. And all of us TA’s in the department had several students who saw their need-based aid as “free money” and just goofed off. I even had one student who would use her aid money to sign up for a full course load, and then drop half of them a week later to get the refund and spent the money on clothes. (I don’t know what kind of financial assistance it was that she could pull that stunt, but she did, until the aid department got wise after a few semesters).

In any case, I agree there needs to be more accountability here.


11 posted on 09/29/2012 10:12:21 PM PDT by DemforBush (100% Ex-Democrat.)
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To: Wyrd bið ful aræd

I just happened to go to school with a lot of people who were pretentious and super competitive. I never really studied for the SATs, and 1860 was a pretty decent score to manage coasting.

Some people I knew took it 3-4 times until they got that perfect score they wanted, I was happy with what I got since I wasn’t trying to apply to Harvard.


12 posted on 09/29/2012 10:22:49 PM PDT by Shadow44
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To: Shadow44

My kid did 1200 without accommodations. He had numerous schools to choose Defoe his major. We offered to send him for sat classes and use the accommodations he can get. He said no.


13 posted on 09/29/2012 10:51:33 PM PDT by EQAndyBuzz
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To: ransomnote
Median SAT scores are 715 at this school.

One of my sons damn near beat that on each of the 3 sections. He only got 2 out of 3.

14 posted on 09/29/2012 11:27:54 PM PDT by Straight Vermonter (Posting from deep behind the Maple Curtain)
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To: ransomnote
I think I saw two satellite campuses of Kent State and at least one other school in Ohio. They'll have to update the Crosby, Stills, Nash and Young song lyrics to “brain dead in O-Hi-O”.
15 posted on 09/30/2012 3:12:37 AM PDT by MacMattico
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To: ransomnote

75% of students are recipients of pell grants and 4% of students are actually graduating!?
///
truly shocking. i know about the trillion of student loean debt, etc. but, this shows the college scam is worse than ithought. a momumental scandal.
...and worse, the USA BORROWS money from our CHILDREN,
to waste like this !


16 posted on 09/30/2012 3:53:20 AM PDT by Elendur (It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. - Thomas Jefferson)
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To: Elendur

I was reading an article once about a woman who called in a bomb threat at a college. She enrolled in school and wanted school loans to pay for it. They managed to get a grant for her to attend school for free. On the first day of classes, she dropped out and wanted her money. They told her that grant money wasn’t refundable and she flipped out.
School loan money is free government money in the urban community.


17 posted on 09/30/2012 4:21:34 AM PDT by AppyPappy (If you really want to annoy someone, point out something obvious that they are trying hard to ignore)
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To: Shadow44
At the time, I thought I was going to the big leagues.

Suprise suprise, they turned me down like a bedspread.

18 posted on 09/30/2012 7:10:14 AM PDT by Wyrd bið ful aræd
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To: Verginius Rufus
It isn;'t clear if they are talking about 4-year graduation rates or 6-year rates.

They certainly aren't talking about four-year graduation rates. Boise State University has a four-year rate of between 6% and 8%, depending on the source - so it would be in the rankings.

19 posted on 09/30/2012 8:47:30 AM PDT by Scoutmaster (You knew the job was dangerous when you took it)
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To: giotto
Median SAT scores are 715 at this school Wait a minute, is that the total score? If I recall correctly, the highest possible total is 1600. A reasonably smart 6th grader could make 715.

My son's lowest score was 750 ... on one section of the SAT (writing). I hope this article is only counting two SAT components and not all THREE! A 715 on two sections is disgraceful ... on three ... I don't even have a word for it.

20 posted on 09/30/2012 12:53:51 PM PDT by lkco
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