Some colleges fail students even when they graduate them, as the students would have been better off skipping college.
“East-West, a private nonprofit school near downtown, is an example of the rare school—one of only 10 four-year U.S. colleges—where the typical former student earns less than high-school dropouts,” The Wall Street Journal noted in an unflattering profile.
Were the Journal’s analysis to compare high school graduates with college dropouts, the results would be even less flattering.
East-West University is a dramatic example of the failure of accredited colleges, usually a type that targets low-income students. Colleges with low graduation rates fail students in similar ways, however.
The higher education debate overlooks college dropouts who carry debt.
“Nearly 30 percent of college students who took out loans dropped out of school, up from fewer than a quarter of students a decade ago,” according to The Washington Post. That statistic, however, is from 2012.
Those students face a dire debt situation with fewer avenues to repay that debt. Default looms large for those dropouts. As bad as East-West University has proved itself to be, scrutiny needs to look at underperforming schools. Cleveland State University, for example, has a 33 percent six-year graduation rate. Dozens of schools had similarly weak results. Their graduates tend not to take on high debt burdens, and their average salary can make the degree worth the debt. For each of those students, however, two students pocketed the debt, but not the degree.
In October, The Economist released an economic ranking of American colleges that included alumni earnings to find the economic benefits for graduates. Hundreds of colleges had median earnings that show students would have been better off attending a different college. The Brookings Institution, in its rankings, found middling results for scores of colleges as well.
The United States doesn’t face an accessibility issue. Nor does it have to deal with graduates who struggle after college. College graduates do better than their non-graduate peers, and an overwhelming majority say the degree was a worthwhile investment. The crisis in higher education are the “non-completers,” and the ones saddled with debt and few options for economic advancement.
