If you think a lifetime of success is more or less guaranteed when an 18-year-old heads off to college the fall after receiving his or her high school diploma, think again. Only three out of five Hoosier college matriculants will get a degree, and those who don’t will be little better off than a high school graduate.⁶ That three-out-of-five ratio is, if anything, optimistic. It is based on full-time enrollment for a bachelor’s degree. Part-time students do even worse.

For the past 40 years, most public policies and incentives have aimed at getting as many students as possible to enroll in college. This focus was evident from the largest national student loan fund to the humblest advice proffered by a guidance counselor: “Of course, you should go to college!” The advice was good, and it had its effect. The national rate of college attainment (the percentage of all adults with bachelor’s or higher degrees) went from only 8 percent prior to World War II to about 28 percent today.

But a new problem has developed. Too many students get started in college, and then either drop out without completing a degree or take as long as six years to do four years’ worth of work. Only a third of all students who start out seeking a bachelor’s degree will get it in four years. Even after six years, only 57 percent (three out of five) complete their degrees. For those who drop out, the potential earnings boost offered by the college degree is lost.

The college graduation rate is lower for public institutions (26 percent after four years) than for private institutions (58 percent after four years). In addition, “students are less likely to graduate if they attend on a part-time or intermittent basis, are academically underprepared, work more than 20 hours per week, fall behind in credits in their first year of college study, and/or are a first-generation, minority or low-income student.” ⁷ See Labor force entrants.

6 Reaching Higher with College Completion Working Paper, Supplement to Reaching Higher: Strategic Directions for Higher Education in Indiana, Indiana Commission for Higher Education, Aug. 15, 2007.

7 Reaching Higher, p. 3, citing degree attainment rates at American colleges and universities (revised edition), Higher Education Research Institution, University of California Los Angeles, by A. Astin and L. Oseguera, 2005.