NOT LONG AGO, A UNIVERSITY’S graduation rate was interesting only to professional educators. It was rarely discussed. It was a bit of information neither trivial nor profound; it was simply a statistic.
Today, however, this figure is a public concern, fraught with political significance. The quest for equality of opportunity has been transformed into a demand for desirable outcomes, and the graduation rate now serves as a critical measure of an institution’s success. A quick “in and out” pattern — matriculation and withdrawal — may still be the rule for unqualified students, particularly minorities, who are most harmed; but it could become a time bomb for the dirty little secret of preferential admissions.
Should college presidents worry that the scandal of revolving-door education will be exposed? They have one thing going for them: Unlike learning, graduation rates are easily manipulated. To educate barely literate, unmotivated students is a diffcult, awe-inspiring accomplishment; to graduate them, by comparison, is a snap. So long as nobody asks what the graduates know, the political fallout from educational failure is minimal. Fortunately for the pressured university, many poor souls still equate holding a diploma with knowing something.
What can a university do to improve its graduation rate, short of outright transcript falsification? Let us count a few of the ways. Each of the steps described below has the advantage of relative obscurity, consistent with traditional administrative discretion. Most of them, taken separately, are defensible — even commendable. But together, they make for a gross fraud, perpetrated in the name of educational progress.
The modern university takes care to offer “special” courses. These are remedial courses, really, whose dumbed-down character is unrevealed in catalogue descriptions. Many people, including future employers, are unaware of their existence. They are not traditional “gut” courses open to anyone; rather, they are available only to “at-risk” students who would otherwise be unable to graduate. At the University of Illinois, where I teach, over a dozen such “transition” courses are offered every semester to a select clientele. This technique of “social progress” is a carry-over from the days of “athletes-only” classes. Indeed, it is still a bread-and-butter means of ensuring that academically troubled athletes are eligible.
Then there is easy transfer credit. A student may hold a school’s degree, but that does not certify that he completed all of his coursework there. The acceptance of transfer credit, even from schools with plebeian standards, is a nicely invisible way of keeping marginal students afloat. Students on the verge of failure can summer at a nearby community college for a fix of As in no-brainer subjects. At Illinois, one-quarter of the 120 credits necessary to graduate may be obtained at outside institutions. As long as (roughly) equivalent courses exist at the home university, and someone is willing to accept that formal course descriptions reflect actual content, grades earned elsewhere count fully toward graduation. Hence, an adulterated degree may be issued and received — a Cadillac with Chevy parts.
Next, there is the phenomenon of “official rescues.” A student facing failure can petition a sympathetic dean to drop a course just before the ax falls. Usually, this extrication is equally welcomed by the instructor. A legacy of irresponsibility — skipped classes, forgotten assignments, missed exams, horrible performances — vanishes completely. Moreover, a well-meaning dean can rescue a panicked student from an upcoming final by granting an official excuse for some never-described “personal problem.” Even medical exemptions can be wangled, as current interpretation of privacy law makes it nearly impossible for professors to distinguish between genuine illness and well-timed hypochondria.
“Steering,” too, has become a more frequent occurrence on campus: the practice of encouraging young people to follow the path of least resistance. An endangered student today receives more than sage advice from an experienced counselor. There is a new variety of counselor, who deals exclusively with marginal students. Unlike the advisers of old, whose performance was not measured by how well their advisees did, these modern experts have a vested economic interest in getting their charges through. After all, too many flunk-outs could invite a program’s abolition. No sense suggesting a tough math or science class.
Also to consider is a professor’s ideological embrace — the shielding of disadvantaged students by professors who fancy themselves humanitarian. Every university has its share of this type of professor, typically concentrated in the social sciences. One former colleague, a world-famous scholar, routinely dispensed B minuses to undeserving minority students, not quite willing to grant an A or even a level B, but definitely unwilling to go as low as C. Such professors, predictably, become well-known to harried guidance counselors who are charged with meeting the numbers. A steady diet of this type of prof can do wonders for ailing grade point averages.
Another useful tool is the curve adjustment. Professors, not universities or accrediting bodies, freely define letter grades. A teacher sympathetic to the plight of struggling, semi-literate students — or, likelier, one who fears trouble — may easily bend the tail of the curve to convert failures into just-barely passes. Unlike the more notorious grade inflation or the policy of dubbing every student an “honors graduate,” this corruption remains obscure. Converting five Fs into Cs is no big deal in a class of 60. Complaints are inconceivable.
Sadly, tolerance for cheating is rampant on campus. In principle, rules against cheating remain as severe as ever. In practice, less and less is being done about it. Technology makes plagiarism easier to execute, more difficult to uncover. Some college writing centers come close to functioning as officially sanctioned ghostwriters. Likewise, paid tutors may have an incentive to cross the line when assisting their clients.
And administrative “due process” has become a tacit conspiracy to make prosecution too costly to consider. An ex-colleague found himself on trial as a result of his pursuit of a cheating case. To accuse a minority student of cheating is to make oneself vulnerable to charges of racism. Deans do not welcome law-and-order crusaders on the faculty. Cheating, unsurprisingly, has become a tempting, low-risk option for desperate students.
Special curriculums? Universities can create these and even whole departments to provide safe havens for students daunted by traditional academic requirements. These programs are usually staffed with faculty committed to dispensing as many degrees as possible. Let the traditionalists smirk at volleyball, art appreciation, leisure studies, and the like: A graduate is a graduate, a booster of the rate. If all else fails, a scheme can be devised to give full academic credit for “life experiences” through internships and independent projects. Unlike containers of food, college diplomas do not list ingredients.
Last, there is what might be described as Marshall Plan-level intensive care. For generations, a college degree was taken to reflect a capacity for perseverance, ingenuity, organization, and other survival skills. Many employers, no doubt, viewed this competence as more important than any specialized knowledge. But “at-risk” students today encounter an environment very different from survival training.
A small army exists to prod them towards a diploma. Along with the ample resources available to all students, Illinois students who are “at-risk” receive special help in everything from computer literacy to study skills. A summer “bridge” program offers instruction in math, reading, and writing. Not only is the program free, enrollees receive weekly living allowances and a cash bonus at summer’s end. More important, bureaucrats, counselors, facilitators, mentors, coordinators, and tutors intensively monitor students’ performance, consulting with faculty as problems arise. Needless to say, the motives underlying this intervention are beyond reproach. But this handholding in loco parentis hardly builds self-sufficiency and independence.
The techniques described above are far from causes celebres. To those engaged in the great political-correctness wars, they are merely a sideshow. Professors have little incentive to resist perpetual toying with grades and diplomas. Special courses and steering remove from regular classrooms students whose sorry performance would inflict moral anguish on believers in traditional standards.
Few professors like to flunk students or read terrible papers. An “out of sight, out of mind” policy helps to preserve innocence as regards the failure of contemporary social engineering. Easy transfer credit also lessens the pain. And, with a breezy “See a dean,” professors are relieved of the burden of personally addressing student problems.
It deserves to be stressed that academic fudging is neither harmless nor purely cosmetic. Many of the “beneficiaries” are oblivious to what has been done for them (or to them). In their minds, honorific Cs in ersatz courses are as real as Cs in engineering or biology. When the supposed rewards of a college degree are not forthcoming, frustration and anger boil up. The promise of higher education is not kept.
And disturbing though it may be, the manufacture of diplomas from Potemkin Village State College should not come as a shock. Highly politicized, pressurized environments virtually require it. Government and private organizations also have learned to manipulate data to satisfy sudden, often unrealistic, political demands. The misrepresentation of facts about job- training, drug rehabilitation, economic assistance, and housing has become an accepted way of life.
So, an era of political cosmetology is upon the university. Few are inspired to ask the awkward questions.
After all, if people insist on degrees, what harm is there in granting them? It is likely that, over time, dishonest and dubious practices will gain ever wider respectability. Administrators will come up with additional ” innovations” to produce, or maintain, acceptable rates of graduation. For just as governments may believe that printing up currency will solve financial strains, universities, too, may imagine that printing up diplomas will make a country educated.
Robert Weissberg is professor of political science at the University of Illinois. His “The Joys of Gibberish” appeared in THE WEEKLY STANDARD last October.
