Berkeley's Retention Rates - How Good Are We?

So, I've been critical for a while of Berkeley's Recruitment and Retention Centers, simply because I've always seen there to ostensibly be much more emphasis on the former than on the latter. Personally, I feel that the retention should be much more emphasized, especially when considering the drop-out rates on this campus.

That being said, this Washington Post article claims that UC Berkeley is "number one in its peer group" with a 85.4 percent graduation rate. Closer look at the actual numbers shows a great disparity between Under-Represented Minorities and the campus average - only 75% of URMs graduate within six years on this campus. In fact, Native Americans bottom out the scale at 54.2%

Honestly, I understand that there are other variables involved in this process, including rising student fees - but it is obvious that more focus must be put on retention than recruitment at this point in the game.

Interestingly, the same numbers show women having higher retention rates than men on this campus. This doesn't surprise me too much, since I guess we get into more shenanigans than the other sex.Email This Post!