The current measure — developed 20 years ago to track student-athletes — has counted only first-time, full-time students who start in the fall and finish a four-year degree in six years or a two-year degree in three years.
While Sinclair has consistently ranked as one of the nation’s top community colleges, it has a graduation rate of 9 percent. Ohio’s four-year schools have a graduation rate of about 60 percent, and for two-year schools it’s 9 percent.
“The national graduation rate data ... is flawed. It’s really bad data,” said David Hopkins, president of Wright State University.
WSU’s graduation rate is 45 percent.
“It’s been used so inappropriately. I think it’s been held up as an indicator of quality of an institution. It’s time we come up with a better indicator of student success,” Hopkins said.
College officials say their schools do not receive credit for graduating some students who reflect more of their population, such as laid-off workers returning to gain new skills or military members who attend part-time.
Earlier this month, the U.S. Department of Education announced it will require the country’s nearly 7,000 institutions to include part-time and transfer students in graduation rates for the first time. The change is expected to take at least two years to implement.
But Stan Jones, president of the national nonprofit Complete College America, said the changes “are not going to increase the graduation rate numbers (because) full-time students graduate at a rate higher than anyone else.”
At Sinclair, the graduation rate reflects just 10 percent of the student body.
“We serve a wide range of students and do it well, but that range is not reflected,” said Kathleen Cleary, Sinclair’s associate provost for student success.
Students who do not finish in either the four- or six-year time period are considered noncompleters, even if they are still working toward their degree the following term, according to education department.
As a result, graduation rates “just aren’t reflective of who community colleges are and who they serve,” said Norma Kent, a spokeswoman with the American Association of Community Colleges.
Hopkins added, “It’s a misunderstanding of the college-going student of the 21st century. What we have to understand in this country is 75 percent of undergraduates nationally are these nontraditional students.”
At Clark State Community College, where the average student age is over 28, the graduation rate is 6 percent.
“So many of our students don’t even intend to get a degree. That wasn’t their original goal,” said David Devier, Clark State’s vice president of academic and student affairs.
“They intended to get a certificate, some courses, pick up a skill. It could be as simple as they needed to know something about computers,” he said.
Low ranking 'must change'
Ohio, which ranks in the bottom quarter nationally for degree attainment, is tying a small, but growing amount of the $1.7 billion — in the state share of instruction — it gives to colleges and universities to the number of students earning degrees, according to Kim Norris with the Ohio Board of Regents.
Ohio’s low ranking “must change,” she said.
This year, 7.5 percent of community college funding is based on performance, which partly includes the number of students who earn an associate degree or transfer. The remaining percent is still based on enrollment, according to the regents.
In fiscal year 2013, performance-based funding will increase to 10 percent.
For universities, 78 percent of the state share of instructions funding is tied to course completion and degree attainment, Norris said.
“These kind of metrics become increasingly important when you know that how an institution is going to be funded is based on how the (graduation) numbers are reported,” Kent said.
Ohio is not alone in a move to performance-based funding. Twenty-six states enacted similar funding models between 1979 and 2007. During that time, 14 states dropped the model, according to the American Association of State Colleges and Universities.
Though the accuracy of the graduation rate is up for debate, there is an increasing focus on the need for more people to earn a degree.
Between 1970 and 2009, the nation’s undergraduate enrollment more than doubled, while the graduation rate went virtually unchanged, according to Complete College America.
For universities, the graduation rate rose only 1.9 percent from 1996 to 2002. At community colleges, the rate fell 1.8 percent from 1999 to 2005, according to the Department of Education.
'Tracking our own success'
Colleges are attempting to address how best to measure whether they are successful with students.
One effort is asking students what they hope to achieve: be it one class to learn more about computers or to earn credit to transfer to another school, said Cleary of Sinclair.
“We’re struggling with how to do a good job of tracking our own success,” she said. “If a student wants a specific job, we would like to be able to track that, but it’s very, very challenging.”
Some of the proposals in the Department of Education’s action plan include counting the number of students reaching a defined amount of credits earned, measuring the percentage of graduates who passed examinations to gain a professional license or looking at the wage growth of graduates.
Sinclair is leading Ohio in a national initiative called Completion by Design, which in part is addressing how many college students need remedial education.
About 62 percent of students who enter Sinclair as college-ready graduate or transfer to a four-year school, compared to the 26 percent of students who require remedial English or math, Cleary said.
Even at Miami University, where the majority of students begin full-time out of high school, the college graduation rate is becoming increasingly complicated as students become more mobile, said President David Hodge.
Miami boasts Ohio’s best graduation rate among public schools, at 83 percent. Hodge said Miami has a goal to increase the rate to 85 percent.
“It’s become a major focus for us, because we want to make it even higher,” he said.
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