Good Essay On What Can Be Done To Improve The College Graduation Rate?

It is not a secret that educational system in the United States has a lot of implications. One of the problems that the educational system faces is a low percentage of students that successfully graduate from college. Only 38% of young adults in the United States of America earn an associate degree or higher. This fact makes the United States lie in 10th place internationally. (Marketplace.org) In spite of this fact, nowadays, more and more different methods are created to somehow improve college graduation rates and retention. Such efforts are made by the people who are not indifferent and who want to improve this country’s conditions. With the use of better counseling services, various support classes and programs, and better intervention in middle and high school, college graduation rates can improve in the United States.
First of all, it is essential to say that it is important for a student to choose a suitable major to begin with. The student must understand all the requirements in order to successfully graduate and use the best strategies to improve his or her academic performance. (Ssireview.org). In turn, colleges and teachers should also provide as much information about all pitfalls, benefits and implications of attending the college and the students chosen major in particular. It is possible for a student not to make wrong choice, but proper counseling will help students make better decisions. Moreover, the perspectives of choosing such profession should also be described, because it is possible to waste plenty of time studying what one does not want. It is important students know how valuable their future profession is, how valuable it will be when they finish college, and how competitive their occupation would be on market etc.
One of the biggest problems in colleges is that students frequently show low productivity; this is due to the fact that they do not know how to spend and organize their time efficiently. That is why it would be better for both students and college to hold various courses or classes that would help students to understand how to allocate their time better in order to achieve maximum productivity. With the help of such knowledge, students would be able to organize their life. Not only would this have a positive impact on the student’s college career, it would carry into their future career as well. It would allow them to decide when to work harder and put more effort in, and where it is possible to relax a little bit or not to spend so much time and effort. Teaching college student’s time management would help dramatically, especially for freshmen and sophomores as they just are beginning to understand what is going on in an absolutely new and strange atmosphere. This action could easily improve college graduation rates.
There is no doubt that the majority of the responsibility of graduating from the college lies on the students’ shoulders. However, that is why in order to improve college graduation rates, a student must want to graduate by building his or her employability. One way colleges could help with this is creating programs to help college students obtain jobs and internships in their fields before graduation if the student so desires. Giving students early hands on experience in their prospective fields will give them a future edge in finding employment, hopefully motivating them to finish college.
Since only 38% of people succeed in getting a degree in the U.S., one may say that the problem begins in high school. One third of students fail to graduate from high school, and 60% of those who graduate have difficulties in colleges. The thinking about the education system in the United States should be changed; it should be an integrated education system, preparing children for college starting in middle school. The student’s progress should be visible at the every stage of the education, so the student may see what he lacks of and where he or she should put more effort.
It is preferable that a student have a burning desire to become a lawyer, architecture, engineer or whatever he or she is studying to be. In other cases, when student’s parents decided for him, or they follow in a family field such as becoming a doctor because dad was a doctor, the student has less of a chance for satisfaction. Students should have the opportunity to take various aptitude and personality tests, meet with career counselors, and speak with people in the field they show interest with. Using these tools, the student can begin to prepare early for their future career, taking appropriate classes in high school to set them up for success in college.
Some may say that it is wrong to blame students for the low graduation rate. Of course, not everything depends only on students’ efforts. Government also plays huge role in improving college graduation rate. For instance, it is known fact that the school, college and university funding is not of top-priority in this country. However, better funding of colleges would make it possible to hire more talented and qualified professors. Better funding would also make it possible to offer many students scholarships or to reduce tuition fees. This would relieve the financial burden, and allow more student a college. The cost of college has gone up so rapidly that plenty of people with low income and working class students would need to work full time just to cover tuition, leaving little time to study. Here, one can see what discourages students from completing education. The thought of graduating in huge amounts of debt serves as a deterrent for attending or completing college.
Nevertheless, the best thing to improve college graduation rates, is to provide services like counseling for students that face different hardships. These hardships could range from financial, to mental or physical and should be addressed whether it is directly connected with studying process or not. For some people who are shy and not very confident, it could be extremely hard to find new friends; others may just struggle with being far from home since they are close to their family. Communication in a college is a very tricky, yet important thing. The more one speaks, the better their communication skills become, which could result increasing ones grades. That is why it is essential to provide such service to help people; they could show poor results that are not due to bad knowledge but due to completely different reason that by no mean deals with studying.
It is believed that pressure which student may feel during studying, and especially during exam period, might be too strong and those students who cannot handle the pressue might just give up. However, as it was already mentioned above, support from psychologist could be essential, particularly when the student is not ready for college emotionally and mentally. Putting someone on campus in charge of encouraging more people to graduate is the right thing to do. (Marketplace.org) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
Another possible method is gathering better statistics about students who drop out of college. Those statistics could then be used to predict what students are at risk of quitting, and programs could be put into place to encourage them not to. It would be possible to see who is at-risk, who needs help or consultation. Or contrastingly, it would be better to show students’ all of their results they made toward graduation, to encourage them, to compliment them. Such boost would be essential for everyone, as it is heartwarming when you get praised. . . . . .
Hence, one can come to the conclusion that there are plenty of methods and strategies in how to improve graduation rating. Most of them are already used by different colleges and universities. It is essential to state that the improvement in the education system is possible only with the help of 2 sides – students and teachers. It is important to establish decent contact between them. However, only with strong desire of studying from students and providing with the best information available, such improvement is possible. Better funding from the government, as well as better dedication from student would yield perfect results.

Work Cited

Marketplace.org,. 'How To Improve College Graduation Rates? Change College | Marketplace.Org'. N.p., 2015. Web. 6 Mar. 2015.
Ssireview.org,. 'A Simple Method To Improve College Graduation Rates (SSIR)'. N.p., 2015. Web. 6 Mar. 2015.
The Columbus Dispatch,. 'Ideas Offered To Boost College Graduation Rates'. N.p., 2015. Web. 6 Mar. 2015.