Dropping Out

By Jeffrey Simons
What could be worse than failing a college class? Or dropping a college class because you’re about to fail? It may seem like it’s the end of the world, especially if this is your first time.
It’s not. It used to be. But it’s not now.
See, just a few years ago, if you failed [...]

It’s not often that a post on this blog is written for parents. Today, however, let’s explore a question that more parents seem to be asking lately . . .
“How can my kid finish up online and earn a degree at the college he [or she] was attending until recently?”
Usually parents only ask this question [...]

By Danielle Koons
It’s been about three weeks since Spring Semester started for most colleges across the nation, and soon the drama will begin. Sometimes you may start a class and realize it isn’t what you’re looking for—or maybe your schedule had to change or a different class fits the credits you need much better. No [...]

In the 2011 Pathways to Prosperity study by the Harvard Graduate School of Education, the United States earned the dubious honor of having the highest college drop-out rates in the study – with just 56% of college students complete 4-year degrees within 6 years. You can help change this statistic.

A new report, “The Hidden Costs of Community Colleges,” just released by American Institutes for Research, points out that there is a huge downside too. Community colleges, the report finds, are costing American taxpayers nearly $1 billion annually – an expense that is ramping up due to the high dropout rate at community colleges.

It turns out that graduating with a lot of debt is even more troubling than we realized. Here are some of those reasons, as explained by Judith Scott-Clayton in a post, “How Worrisome is College Debt?” on her New York Times Economix blog:

“A detection model of college withdrawal,” a study of 1,158 freshmen at 10 American colleges and universities conducted by researchers at Michigan State University, has uncovered some pretty interesting reasons why college students drop out.

A few students have recently told me that they are fed up with college. They’re spending a barrel of money with no guarantee of employment after graduation.  Some of them also tell me that they have dull instructors who teach boring classes. Yet these students seem hesitant to take time off.

“At most N.J. colleges, freshmen have less than 50 percent chance of graduating in 4 years,” an article in the January 30 edition of the Star-Ledger, delivers some news that must worry a lot of people in the Garden State. But instead of fretting about the changes, maybe we should feel good. If colleges in New Jersey and elsewhere are flexible enough to adapt to the needs of their students, isn’t that a good thing? 

There was a time when dropping out of college carried a certain stigma. If you dropped out, it implied that you couldn’t do the work or that you lacked motivation. It’s a lot different today , because taking time off can be a great idea.