Michael, you make a very good point about transfers.
It is very difficult to come up with data on the students that transfer and then graduate at another institution.
This transfer data is not part of the completion (graduation) rate because, in part, of the difficulties in securing an accurate number on transfers. The other question is whether an institution should be able to consider a student that doesn’t graduate from its institution (but graduates somewhere else) as a graduate for graduation rate purposes? I don’t think so–it would be misleading.
One of the chilling things that some states are doing is tracking students within their own state, and now states are trying to create multistate data networks to track students. The idea is to have this data to identify whether students eventually graduate. However, these data systems are used to track a lot more about students than just graduation rates.
Another point that isn’t captured by a graduation rate number is why students don’t graduate. There is an assumption (I think) that students don’t graduate within six years because of academic reasons (or due to some failure on the part of institutions). There are many other reasons why students don’t graduate within the six-year period, including financial reasons.
These other reasons don’t make a difference in determining whether tax dollars to subsidize financial aid are worth the investment, however these other reasons do matter when evaluating the effectiveness of postsecondary institutions. I also strongly caution anyone against trying to make apples to apples comparisons across institutions. Institutions have a wide variety of missions and cater to different populations.
