16 February 2005

Longwood’s graduation rate better than similar schools, according to national survey

Longwood University is graduating its students at a significantly higher rate than similar colleges and universities, according to a national study released recently.

The study also found that the gap between the rates at which African-American and white students graduate is considerably smaller at Longwood than at comparable schools.

The results of the U.S. Education Department's tabulation of 2003 graduation rates for colleges and universities were analyzed by the Education Trust, a national nonprofit research and advocacy organization that works to close the educational achievement gap for low-income and minority groups. In an accompanying 20-page report, One Step from the Finish Line: Higher College Graduation Rates are Within Our Reach, Longwood is singled out twice for praise.

Longwood's six-year graduation rate, 61.3 percent, is 9.9 percentage points better than the median for its so-called peer group, which comprises 26 mostly public master's degree-granting institutions. The six-year graduation rates in Longwood's group ranged from 71.9 to 34.8 percent, with 11 of the 26 schools having a rate of less than 50 percent.

Among all 232 schools in the Public Master's I category, which is the most common classification and accounts for more than 45 percent of all institutions of higher education, Longwood has the 13 th best overall graduation rate. About 85 percent of the 507 public four-year institutions listed in the study have a lower overall graduation rate than Longwood.

In the 2005 U.S. News & World Report "America's Best Colleges" survey, Longwood was included in the category Highest Graduation Rates: Universities - Master's (South) with a 60 percent graduation rate.

The study also looked at the gap in six-year graduation rates between African-American and white students. Longwood's gap is 3.7 percent, with the graduation rate being 62.2 percent for white students and 58.5 percent for African-Americans. In Longwood's peer group, some 12 of the 22 schools that submitted figures have a gap of more than 10 percent, including eight with a disparity of more than 20 percent.

Of the 207 Public Master's I institutions with graduation rates for African-Americans, Longwood has the 7 th best graduation rate for African-American students. About 90 percent of the 420 public four-year institutions that submitted data have a lower graduation rate for African-American students than Longwood.

"The average institution has a gap of about 11 percentage points, and with some it's as big as 20 percent," said Kevin Carey, director of policy research for the Education Trust, who wrote the report. "We wanted to focus on institutions that have either no gap or a smaller-than-average gap."

The report said it "focuses on the unusually high-performing colleges and universities that are most successful in helping their students succeed. These are institutions that have much higher graduation rates than their peers - even after taking into account financial resources, student demographics, institutional mission, admissions selectivity, and a range of other external factors." Longwood officials were pleased to be cited for two key categories in the report.

"What the report says is that we're doing something above and beyond the norm for a lot of colleges and universities with our characteristics," said Dr. Jeff Hoyt, director of assessment and institutional research. "We're exceeding the retention rate for an institution like ours not by a small margin but by a substantial margin. One of the factors is attracting a high-quality student body, but, despite this fact, we are beating the odds in increasing the graduation rate; we're adding value in terms of retention. Probably the main reason is individual attention from the faculty. Class sizes are small, faculty know the students' names, our faculty is high-quality."

The average six-year graduation rate for public non-doctorate-granting schools is 40.3 percent, Dr. Hoyt said. Longwood's six-year graduation rates have been rising from a low of 57.3 percent for the new 1996 new freshman cohort to a high of 63.7 percent for the new 1998 freshman cohort.

Longwood also does well in the category of one-year retention rate, which is important since many students who drop out do so in their first year, Dr. Hoyt added. The one-year retention rate for public master's degree-granting schools is 69.8 percent; Longwood's one-year retention rate is 76.6 percent.

The Education Trust report was released Jan. 19 along with a "user-friendly online tool," found at www.collegeresults.org, that allows users to choose any four-year public or private nonprofit college or university in the country and see how its graduation rates compare with similar schools. Graduation rates are broken down by students' race, ethnicity and gender.

"This is the first time this annual survey has been done in this much detail and in a way that allows each institution to compare itself to similar institutions," said Carey. "We think it's a much fairer comparison than, for example, Longwood comparing itself to the University of Virginia."