By Sasha Williams
“Graduation Date: Never” is part one of a two-part series focusing on the University of Louisville’s graduation rate for undergraduate students. This week’s article investigates reasons behind the low numbers.
High school seniors wanting to graduate college within six years may want to steer clear of the University of Louisville. U of L’s graduation rate is the second-lowest college graduation rate in the Bluegrass State, behind Kentucky State University. The provost’s office reported that only 33.1 percent of all incoming freshmen at U of L will graduate within six years, nearly half the number at other state schools. The low rates have university officials searching for reasons why.
In 1994, the provost created the office of Retention Research in an effort to determine why U of L’s graduation rates are so low. The research staff used student exit interviews, telephone surveys and focus groups to develop profiles of students who leave U of L and of those who graduate.
According to Dale Billingsley, associate provost for Undergraduate Affairs, research indicates some students leave school because of failing grades, but only a small number are actually dismissed by the university without the option to petition for return.
Billingsley said the most frequent reasons student cite for leaving the university are financial problems and personal issues. “As far as we have been able to tell … many students who face financial difficulties leave the university before any academic requirement forces them to,” Billingsley said.
Former U of L student Whitney Bauhofer said that financial pressures combined with the stress of going to school and working full-time was too much for her.
Bauhofer began her undergraduate career at U of L in the fall of 2002, right after graduating from high school. She paid her own tuition but had to take out student loans to make ends meet.
“You are just not prepared for when you get to college. You don’t think about putting money away for college when you are in high school,” she said. “You really have to have your head on straight and know what you are doing.”
Rising tuition and high cost of living forces many students to increase their work hours. “I hated waking up for a 7 a.m. class, going to school all day, and then having to go to work right afterward. My day wasn’t over until 10 p.m.,” Bauhofer said.
More time spent at work means less time in the classroom, and less time for studying. This can lead to poor academic performance, and/or cause students to take fewer credit hours per semester. This was the case with Bauhofer. She began college as a full-time student with a high grade point average, but two semesters later was a part-time student with a much lower GPA.
“I really started to feel like I was wasting my money,” Bauhofer said. “It was just too hard, having to balance school and work and friends. I wanted to enjoy my college experience.” She withdrew from U of L in 2003 and now attends Jefferson Community College.
Personal issues that students reported as causes for withdrawing include family emergencies, illness and other unexpected events. Billingsley advises students to let their professors know about circumstances that interfere with class work.
“Many faculty work hard with such students to make allowances for late work so that courses can be completed on time, but in other cases – especially when students walk away from courses, leaving the university without official withdrawal – such arrangements are not possible,” Billingsley stated.
Financial problems and personal issues may be more common for U of L students than for those at other universities because of the university’s largely non traditional student body. Traditional students are aged 23 and under. The average age for U of L students is 26. Students in their mid-20s often have more distractions than younger students, including mortgages, families and children.
“You never get to take a nap,” said Betsy Wade, a nontraditional student who graduated from U of L in December. “You have to get a babysitter just to do your homework.”
Increasing U of L’s graduation rate is a top priority for university President James Ramsey. “I have heard all kinds of excuses: we’re an urban institution; we’re a commuter school; we’re a nonresident campus; we have more students who work at least part time. As I noted in my address, we are not going to use these as excuses. Rather, the provost’s office has developed a very specific game plan to improve our graduation rates.”
Next week, part two of the series will look at solutions proposed by university administrators.
