Report identifies factors affecting graduation and retention rates

Jeremy Hunt

Student Reba Valdez calculates the cost of an ad in the Daily Lobo’s display ads office. Valdez said working on campus has made school easier for her.

Jobs on campus, more high school prep needed to increase graduation rates

by JEREMY HUNT

Provost Reed Dasenbrock started a committee in June to identify the factors affecting graduation rates at UNM.

The six-year graduation rate for entering freshmen in fall 2000 is 43.3 percent, according to the UNM Factbook. Dasenbrock released the Graduation Task Force’s report Jan. 25.

The report gives eight strategies to improve graduation and retention rates. Dasenbrock said there are more than 80 recommendations in the report, which will be reviewed by faculty, staff and students before any action is taken.

“It’s important to understand we’re not going to be acting on certainly the most complicated recommendations right away,” he said. “Over the next two months, we’re going to have a rich campus conversation about it.”

Dasenbrock said it won’t be easy to increase the graduation rate.
“We know that there’s not a silver bullet,” he said. “There’s not a single magic potion that will enable students to graduate.”

More on-campus jobs might help students graduate sooner
“We know that working off campus correlates negatively with graduation rates,” Dasenbrock said. “There’s a strong push in here to increase the amount of employment opportunities on campus.”

The report identifies student engagement in on-campus activities as being a major factor in graduation rates. Because so many students need to work to support themselves, it makes sense to give them money and get them involved on campus at the same time, Dasenbrock said.

“What I would like to do is to make it part of our legislative priority next year to increase the amount of state aid for work-study,” he said. “I’m hoping that we can have a very wide-range conversation about what kinds of student employment would be most beneficial for students themselves.”

Jobs on campus can be found at the Student Employment Office’s Web site.

Dasenbrock said the ideal would be to create more jobs on campus that align with students’ majors.

Student Alicia Arguelles works in the biology department doing genetic research. Arguelles said she likes working on campus because it is convenient and will look good on her résumé.

“Since you’re working in an environment with a bunch of people who are going for their degrees, it helps you focus on your studies,” she said. “Stuff that’s in your field definitely helps more than something completely different.”

Arguelles said it’s better to work on campus with other students than anywhere else.
“You have to deal with the stress of having to travel to that job,” she said. “It’s a lot harder because you have a totally different group of people whose priorities are a lot different than people in school.”

Arguelles said her coworkers are studying the same subject as her, so they are also study partners. Arguelles has a second job off campus, but she said she would like to be able to pay all her bills with her job in the biology lab.

Student Miguel Montoya said he has been going to UNM off and on for eight years, trying to juggle work and school. Montoya said he has never wanted to work on campus, but it would have helped him in school.

“Once I’m done with class, I just want to get out of here,” he said. “When I was 18, 19, 20, I wasn’t involved in anything, and that probably would have made me graduate sooner.”

Jeremy Hunt

Student Erica Logue designs an ad in the Daily Lobo’s display ads office. Logue said she enjoys being involved in something for the University.

Most students aren’t ready to go to college after graduating high school
Student Jerome Baca wasn’t prepared for college when he graduated high school, but it wasn’t because his high school did a poor job.

“I wasn’t ready to study or take the time to study,” he said. “I wanted to party.”

The report states that many students are not prepared to go to college after they graduate high school, which hurts retention and graduation rates.
Baca said New Mexican high schools give students the proper tools to attend UNM, but it’s up to the students to be responsible and work at college.

“They do an adequate job. This isn’t Harvard or something like that,” he said. “They’re in a pretty tough position to get a student to want academic success.”

Dasenbrock said the high schools in rural New Mexico do not provide as good an education as those in urban areas.

Vice Provost Peter White said there are many factors that affect how prepared students are for college.
In fall 2006, 867 of 3,026 freshmen needed remedial courses, White said.

“They need more work than their peers because the subject doesn’t come as naturally to them,” he said. “It takes longer for them to master that material.”

Implementing a placement exam for high school students would help them see what subjects they’re going to need more work in, White said. They could take remedial classes while in high school, rather than waiting until they start at UNM, he said.

“If they don’t know where they stand academically, they won’t know if they need basic skills classes,” he said. “We have to give them that information before they arrive on campus.”

White said social and economic factors, such as the number of teachers and class size, impact how well students are prepared. Many high schools in New Mexico do not offer much math beyond algebra I, he said.

The report recommends high schools change their pre-college curriculum to include an English composition course senior year, an additional upper-level math course senior year, an additional science course and two foreign language credits.

Student Paul Oull said his high school didn’t prepare him for college.

“Most high school classes are too easy, especially English,” he said. “In high school, the classes are mostly reading. In college classes, there’s a lot more writing.”

Oull said it’s difficult to transition to college, because high school classes emphasize attendance rather than academics.
“All the classes are different. Pretty much everything is different compared to high school,” he said. “There’s more freedom, and some people are not used to it.”

White said there are many ways UNM works with high schools, including a committee that communicates with them and a teacher exchange program for math and English instructors to observe classes and talk about standards and expectations in college.

“We’re trying to work with our high schools instead of blaming them,” he said. “The retention and graduation rates will continue to increase as long as we have a good relationship with our partner institutions.”