The proposed increase in admissions standards is part of UNC’s effort to increase the system-wide retention and graduation rates.
Currently, the system-wide retention rate (freshmen advancing to their sophomore year) is 80.6 percent, but as UNC President Erskine Bowles pointed out that number is skewed by UNC-Chapel Hill and North Carolina State. UNC-Chapel Hill has a retention rate of 96.5 percent, while State’s is 89.4 percent. Appalachian State (84.5 percent) and UNC-Asheville (80.7 percent) were the only other schools with rates above 80 percent. Under benchmarks proposed by Harold Martin, senior vice president for academic affairs, the system would like to have a retention rate of 80 percent.
The same skews can be found with the four-year and six-year graduation rates. Those rates are 35 percent (four-year) and 59.3 percent (six-year) currently, with UNC-Chapel Hill and State skewing the numbers. The North Carolina School of the Arts is the only school besides UNC-Chapel Hill (72.6 percent) to have a four-year graduation rate above 50 percent, with a rate of 52.1 percent.
UNC’s benchmarks are 30 percent for the four-year graduation rate, and 50 percent for the six-year rate.
Bowles said it’s important to look at each campus individually at what can be done to improve the graduation and retention rates.
