April 26, 2008
New Mexico Business Weekly
College with a purpose
Reed Dasenbrock, New Mexico's cabinet secretary for higher education, aims to increase graduation rates without reducing access. His ultimate goal is a population ready to take on higher-wage jobs.
by Thomas Munro NMBW StaffThe United States is beginning to fall behind in rates of higher education, and New Mexico is trailing the rest of the country by a wide margin.
New Mexico Cabinet Secretary of Higher Education Reed Dasenbrock's response to that challenge begins with one of the state's brighter spots: It ranks 12th nationally in the percentage of its high school graduates who start college.
Then something -- or a number of things -- go wrong, and at the end just 28 percent of the state's population has an associates degree or higher. The number is 39 percent for the U.S. as a whole; a majority of the population of Canada now has degrees, as do majorities in Japan and South Korea. Six-year graduation rates do not necessarily account account for all the routes students take to graduation, but the nationwide comparison is still meaningful.
"At a moment when education is more important than ever, the U.S. has lost its position of leadership," Dasenbrock said. "Countries around the world have committed to the democratization of education."