The graduation rate at Chapel Hill is about 84% — within six years of entering school. School officials say that they want to improve on that percentage. Details are in this News and Observer article.
Of the 16% who don’t graduate, 6% transfer elsewhere and 10% drop out, apparently due to academic difficulties most of the time.
Is there a problem here? Certainly not with the transfers. Nothing has been lost to the university when a student concludes that he’d be better off at another institution and decides to leave. One can hardly fault the administration for having admitted a student who later finds that UNC is not the ideal school.
With the students who drop out for academic reasons, however, we might ask why they were admitted in the first place. Bernadette Gray-Little, dean of the College of Arts and Sciences, suggests that UNC’s minimum GPA for admittance (1.5) is too low. I should think so. It is rather surprising to learn that any student with only a 1.5 GPA would be considered, much less admitted, but evidently some are.
The funny thing about the article is the discussion about the reasons for academic failure. “Some went to rural high schools that offered no advanced classes, and some are first-generation college students.”
Excuse me, but there is an elephant in the room. Suggesting that the trouble here is rural high schools or first-generation students is really a stretch. Why won’t the UNC officials admit that their affirmative action policy allows in a lot of students who are not academically a fit for the school?
