A rising number of college freshmen are dropping out, according to a survey of 2,564 colleges and universities that says nearly 27 percent failed to return to campus for a second year.
A report released Thursday by American College Testing also shows the college graduation rate at the surveyed schools is at its lowest in more than a decade."It's taking students longer to graduate. That has been a trend for quite a while," says David Merkowitz, a spokesman for the American Council on Education, a group representing the nation's colleges and universities. "A combination of rising tuitions, increased job opportunity, a growing economy, concerns about student aid can lead more students not to return."
The survey showed that the freshman-to-sophomore dropout rate at the surveyed two- and four-year public and private institutions rose to 26.9 percent this year.
That's just a little above last year's rate of 26.2 percent, but it's nearly 2.5 percentage points higher than the dropout rate reported 13 years ago when ACT began collecting data. The ACT report did not give the precise freshman-to-sophomore dropout rate for 1993.
ACT, based in Iowa City, Iowa, tests college applicants for reading comprehension, science reasoning, English and mathematics.
More high school graduates are going to college, but rising tuitions mean some cannot afford to stay in school, Merkowitz says. Also, increasing numbers of nontraditional students, who now make up more than 40 percent of the enrollment at two- and four-year public and private schools, are forced to study in a start-and-stop fashion, he says.
In addition, improving economic conditions mean more jobs, which can lure students from campus.