College Graduation Rates Need Raising, Group Says

Report call on colleges to give students more credit for previous learning

Wonder why it’s taking your younger brother so long to finish a four-year degree? A commission of the nation’s six leading higher-education associations says schools are not properly serving a changing college population. Students are now skewing older and more of them are part-time. So the commission, in a report titled “College Completion Must Be Our Priority,” released on Thursday, calls on colleges and universities to find ways to give students credit for previous work. That could be through exams like the College Board’s College-Level Examination Program, portfolio assessments or other equivalency evaluations, the commission suggests. They’ve even threw midnight classes and more online classes on the table. Right now, almost half of the students who begin college at a two- or four-year institution fail to earn a degree within six years. Yikes! (New York Times)

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