SEMO STRIVES FOR HIGHER GRADUATION RATE

GRAPIC - SIX-YEAR GRADUATION RATES

Southeast Missouri State University hopes to make the grade when it comes to its graduation rate.

But it's not there yet. Currently, the university's six-year graduation rate stands at 45 percent, which is short of the 55 percent goal set by the Missouri Coordinating Board for Higher Education.

According to the state, 45 percent of full-time freshmen who entered Southeast in 1992 graduated from the Cape Girardeau school or another public college in Missouri within six years.

That's up from 40 percent for the 1989 freshman class.

Statewide, the overall graduation rate at Missouri's four-year public colleges increased from 47 percent to 49 percent in a comparison of the 1989 and 1992 freshman classes.

Southeast's latest rate was the fourth best graduation percentage among Missouri's 13 public, four-year colleges and universities, CBHE statistics show.

Truman State University at Kirksville topped the list with a 71 percent graduation rate. That is just short of the state-mandated 75 percent rate for the school.

The University of Missouri-Columbia met the state-mandated goal of 65 percent set for that institution.

The University of Missouri-Rolla had a 59 percent graduation rate, leaving it short of the 65 percent goal.

Harris-Stowe graduated only 11 percent of its students, the lowest rate of any of the four-year institutions.

Dr. John Wittstruck, Missouri's associate commissioner of higher education, said many of the students at the inner-city St. Louis school take 10 years to graduate rather than the six years used to calculate graduation rates.

He said Harris-Stowe only began strengthening its admission requirements in 1996.

Missouri's public colleges and universities have been striving to meet graduation-rate goals, implemented by the coordinating board in 1996.

The goals were based on admission criteria.

Southeast is considered a moderately selective institution, along with Missouri Southern, Central, Northwest and Harris-Stowe.

The graduation-rate goal is 55 percent for those schools.

Missouri Western and Lincoln are open-enrollment schools with a graduation-rate goal of 45 percent.

Southwest and the four campuses of the University of Missouri system are considered selective institutions, with tougher admission requirements than moderately selective schools like Southeast. Their graduate-rate goal is 65 percent.

Truman State is the only public university in Missouri that is defined as highly selective in terms of its admission standards. It seeks to meet the highest graduation-rate goal in the state -- 75 percent.

Dr. Dale Nitzschke, Southeast's president, said the school isn't satisfied with its 45 percent graduation rate.

He said the university is working to improve the retention of students from their freshman to sophomore year.

Currently, 70 percent of Southeast freshmen return for their sophomore year. That's less than the 75 percent target established by CBHE.

But Southeast officials said they are working to reach that goal.

Dr. Pauline Fox, academic associate in the office of the executive vice president at Southeast, has been studying the retention issue.

Fox said there always will be some students who drop out of school. "Some students at age 18 just lack the maturity that it takes to buckle down and do the work," she said.

But Southeast officials said the freshman class is increasingly better prepared for college.

New statewide core curriculum requirements for high school students have helped. Southeast added the core curriculum requirement to its admission policy in 1995.

Southeast began implementing stricter admission standards even before the coordinating board did.

Southeast began moving toward a stricter admissions standard in 1984, said Art Wallhausen, assistant to the president.

In 1992, the Board of Regents adopted an admissions policy that requires entering students to score at least 18 on the ACT exam and have a 2.0 grade point average.

That policy remains in effect today. The state, however, does allow for exceptions. Ten percent of the students don't have to meet the admissions criteria, Wallhausen said.

Fox said the latest graduation rates reflect what happened to the 1992 freshman class. They don't indicate how the latest freshman class is doing.

"It is a kind of a waiting game," she said.

More recent freshmen classes may already be doing better in terms of the graduation rate. But that success takes six years to measure. Said Fox, "We may have made significant progress and don't even know it."

The graduation rates reported by CBHE don't take into account students who transfer to Southeast from community colleges or other four-year schools. Likewise, students aren't counted who begin their college careers at Southeast and then transfer to and graduate from private or out-of-state schools.

The graduation rates also don't include students who take more than six years to get an undergraduate degree.

Southeast officials said they don't know how long it will take for the school to reach the 55 percent graduation rate.

Nitzschke said the region has a large number of first-generation college students.

Southeast isn't trying to be an elite school, appealing only to the most gifted of students, Nitzschke said. "Our task is far more difficult than Truman, Yale or Harvard."