When it comes to the classroom, we don’t want just one winner, which is why in the past we've used the Final Four as an analogy for the kind of thinking higher education should avoid.
We argued that while rounds of elimination may be exciting when it comes to sports, it’s misplaced in higher education where an unrealistic “beat the odds” mentality has traditionally held too much sway and is particularly out of place with respect to low income and first generation students.
When a research firm called Eduventures recently published a university ranking using Final Four-style bracketing system, however, we had to take a look. What we found is a way of ranking universities that emphasizes exactly the right thing: student success.
The firm analyzed more than 1,100 U.S. higher education institutions and compared a predicted retention rate with the actual retention rates. Predicted rates of retention were based on the school’s academics, affordability, and social factors.
Five UIA institutions made the top 50 in student retention for public research universities: Georgia State University, Michigan State University, Ohio State University, University of Central Florida (UCF), and UC Riverside. Three additional UIA institutions were ranked in the top 100 for student retention: Arizona State University (ASU), Oregon State University, and Purdue University.