{"id":12439,"date":"2012-08-29T14:05:31","date_gmt":"2012-08-29T18:05:31","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/?p=12439"},"modified":"2012-08-29T14:21:54","modified_gmt":"2012-08-29T18:21:54","slug":"four-things-colleges-need-to-do-to-increase-graduation-rates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/2012\/08\/29\/four-things-colleges-need-to-do-to-increase-graduation-rates\/","title":{"rendered":"Four Things Colleges Need to Do to Increase Graduation Rates"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Sarah Gonzalez \/ StateImpact Florida<\/p>

College students with a sense of civic engagement are more likely to complete a degree, according to the Lumina Foundation panel Tuesday. <\/p><\/div>\n

The Lumina Foundation hosted a panel discussion in Ybor City Tuesday discussing the importance of graduating students with a post-secondary degree.<\/p>\n

The foundation, which is an\u00a0underwriter\u00a0of StateImpact Florida, has one big goal: to increase the percentage of Americans with high-quality degrees to 60 percent by 2025.<\/p>\n

According to a report by the Georgetown University Center on Education and the Workforce, 59 percent of Florida\u2019s jobs will require postsecondary education by 2018.<\/p>\n

Here are four suggestions the expert panel had for colleges trying to improve retention and graduation rates:\u00a0<\/p>\n

1. Lower Tuition<\/strong><\/p>\n

Panelists Aaron Smith, the co-founder of Young Invincibles, said the biggest issue people have with college — is the cost.<\/p>\n

\u201cThey know how important it is to get that degree, at the same time there’s all these barriers to getting a degree,” Smith said. “You look at the cost, you know its going up.”<\/p>\n

2. Bring in More Guidance Counselors<\/strong><\/p>\n

\n

Smith said plenty of students take courses they don’t need because they’re not directed in the right direction.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn this country, we\u2019ve cut way back on guidance counselors in our high schools,” he said. “There are schools where they have one guidance counselor for a thousand students.”<\/p>\n

3. Set Students Expectations<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n

Miami-Dade College president, Eduardo Padr\u00f3n, was among the panelists. He said his school explains the learning outcomes expected of students in each class they take.<\/p>\n

“We’re making our programs more intrusive and direct, we\u2019re leaving less options, ” he said. “We\u2019ve discovered students want more structure.”<\/p>\n

\u201cWe’re going from a philosophy that prevailed in the 70s, the 80s and even the 90s, of the right to fail — which means you come to college, you swim or sink, it’s your problem; to a philosophy now which is based on the right to succeed which places a lot of responsibilities on the institution,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

4. Create a Sense of Community<\/strong><\/p>\n

Smith said students who feel like they are part of a community are more likely to complete a degree.<\/p>\n

“We see that when schools really have a sense of civic engagement, students actually feel like they\u2019re part of a community. They see their peers – even if they\u2019re working other jobs – they\u2019re still trying to graduate, that sense of community is really powerful and gets students to finish,” he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The Lumina Foundation hosted a panel discussion in Ybor City Tuesday discussing the importance of graduating students with a post-secondary degree. The foundation, which is an\u00a0underwriter\u00a0of StateImpact Florida, has one big goal: to increase the percentage of Americans with high-quality degrees to 60 percent by 2025. According to a report by the Georgetown University Center […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":95,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12439"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/95"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12439"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12439\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12439"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12439"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stateimpact.npr.org\/florida\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12439"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}