COLLEGE-RETENTION RATES DEPEND MORE ON HIGH-SCHOOL PREPARATION FOR HIGHER EDUCATION

Training is everything. The peach was once a bitter almond and cauliflower is nothing but cabbage with a college education. Mark TwainThere is a growing public use of institutional graduation rates as a measure of accountability and a tendency to blame colleges for student failure to complete degrees in a timely fashion. Because college graduates earn more than those with a high school diploma, higher graduation rates suggest higher tax revenue and a more resilient economy.

College may be worth more, but economist Thomas Sowell suggests that the relative wage gap between high school and college graduates has grown partly because high school is worth less. In his book, "Inside American Education," Sowell traces the relative decline in the value of a high school diploma to the 1970s when education experts began implementing measures to increase high school graduation rates.

A major topic of discussion at last month's education summit in Palisades, N.Y., was what to do about the large number of socially promoted 12th-graders who "earned" their diplomas but are unable to pass a standards test. The Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund is suing to block a high school standards exam in Texas. Supporters of the suit contend that withholding diplomas from students who have successfully completed the course work constitutes education fraud by the school system.

Having raised high school graduation rates to more than 80 percent, politicians and educrats have turned their attention to colleges. Much of the literature on college retention has focused on at-risk students who fail to obtain the degree rather than the attributes of those who succeed. A recent Department of Education study by Clifford Adelman titled "Answers in the Tool Box: Academic Intensity, Attendance Patterns and Bachelor's Degree Attainment" should correct this deficiency.

Instead of blaming low graduation rates on nonmaturing faculty and staff, Adelman found that universities have very little influence on student retention. The probability of completing a college degree before age 30 is primarily a function of the academic rigor of high school preparation and the continuous enrollment of the student.

High school students who took more years of math, laboratory science, foreign language and English were much more likely to earn a degree. Even after controlling factors such as income, those who finished a math class beyond Algebra II (trigonometry, precalculus or calculus) were more than twice as likely to graduate from college. Students from the lowest two socioeconomic quintiles who are also in the highest academic rigor quintile earn bachelor's degrees at a higher rate than a majority of students from the top socioeconomic group. The positive impact of academic rigor on the degree completion of African Americans and Latino students was much greater than it was for white students.

Retention rates also mean less because the pattern of college attendance has changed. Not only are students taking longer to complete the degree, they are college hopping. Since the late 1970s, the proportion of bachelor-degree recipients attending more than one institution increased to 58 percent from 49 percent with an even larger increase in the proportion of students attending more than two institutions.

The number of institutions attended has no effect on degree completion as long as the student is continuously enrolled. Adelman speculates that late drop dates and easy withdrawal policies without punitive effect may adversely impact degree completion by interrupting continuous enrollment. He predicts multi-institutional attendance will "easily surpass 60 percent" by the year 2000.

Internet courses and long-distance learning opportunities suggest that many more college graduates in the near future will fashion degrees from a variety of education providers over a broad geographic area. The ability of non-elite colleges to enforce high retention assumes they enjoy a degree of monopoly power, an assumption that is less valid as the market for higher education becomes national in scope.

If colleges have little or no influence on student retention, attempts by politicians to increase graduation rates via funding incentives will be ineffective at best. More likely, a major topic of discussion at future education summits will be the social promotion of college seniors and the growing wage gap between bachelor's and master's degree recipients.

At-risk students are victims not of discrimination by uncaring colleges, but of an education system that has failed to adequately prepare them for university instruction. The long-term solution to low college retention is a more demanding high school curriculum and administrators with the moral courage to support teachers who enforce minimum standards.

Missouri taxpayers should be less concerned with which university eventually gets to count a student as a graduate and more concerned with maintaining high quality at a reasonable cost. To quote Harry Truman, the last U.S. president not to attend college, "A lot can be accomplished when no one worries about who gets the credit."Michael Devaney is professor of finance at the Donald Harrison College of Business at Southeast Missouri State University in Cape Girardeau.