They used to be known as "perennial students" — the ones more interested in perpetuating their life on campus than in finishing their degree. Slow-walking your way to the workforce has always been seen as a luxury and, with tuitions skyrocketing out of reach, it’s now a luxury that very few can afford.
And yet the University of Hawaii at Manoa has the dismal average currently of only 18 percent bachelors degree candidates graduating within the customary four years. It’s a relief to see that addressing this shortcoming — the national four-year completion rate is 38.6 percent — has moved up the priority list for the UH administration, which clearly hasn’t given the concern enough weight.
The students themselves bear some responsibility for languishing too long in college, of course, but University of Hawaii at Manoa must do more to hold up its end of the bargain: providing a practical pathway toward completion of a bachelor’s degree within four years.
The larger public interest in this goes beyond the desire to save the students and their families from excessive tuition debt.
What’s also at stake is the diminishment of the students’ earning power if they abandon their quest for a degree, or the extended delay in becoming part of the economy and helping it to grow. Better-paying jobs are increasingly the territory of college graduates; young adults who can’t qualify for them or postpone employment also aren’t buying homes, purchasing goods, saving for retirement and all the rest.
The university’s six-year graduation rate is not as bad — it’s climbed to 56.7 percent, just over 2 percentage points below the national average. And a review of the four-year rate shows an upward trend.
Still, there’s no justification for allowing such a lag in what must be a primary part of any state university’s mission: providing an accessible college education to the residents of Hawaii. In the islands especially, the responsibility to serve in-state students, many of whom could not afford an education elsewhere, needs to be paramount.
Reed Dasenbrock, the UH-Manoa vice chancellor for academic affairs, told the Star-Advertiser about the flagship campus’ healthy list of strategies being tried for driving up the numbers. The recession forced universities nationally to cut budgets, and many of them resorted to reducing class offerings; the university must persist in reversing that trend now.
Approaches underway at UH include:
» Planning: Each of the 92 majors now have a degree plan, showing which courses to take when, semester by semester.
» Acceleration: Incoming freshmen admitted to the fall semester could start the preceding summer; they also will be signed up for 15 credits, even if students attain full-time status with only 12.
» Employment: UH would compound its efforts to expand financial aid by also expanding on-campus, part-time job opportunities. Students who work on campus tend to stay there — and graduate.
» Simplification: The minimum number of credits has been trimmed by four to the national standard of 120, and some of the more complicated rules about the types of credits required are being reconsidered.
These good ideas should be ramped up; there is no time to lose.
The UH administration has touted advances in its research program in recent years, and that is an essential part of a flagship campus’ function. However, undergraduate achievement and credentialing should be Job 1. Manoa now ranks 38th out of the 50 states, plus the District of Columbia, in its four-year graduation rate, according to federally mandated figures.
Not everything has to be a competition, but seriously, Hawaii can and should do better than that.
