Only 69 per cent of U of A undergrads finish their degrees

Thursday, 24 January 2008

Approximately one in three undergraduate students at the University of Alberta don’t complete their degrees, according to the G13 Data Exchange.

Representing a group of 13 research-intensive universities across Canada, the group reported in its Student Completion Rate Comparisons data that only 69 per cent of U of A undergrads graduated, placing the institution third from the bottom.

While the chart doesn’t list the names of peer institutions in the results released to the U of A, it showed the completion rates for undergrads topped out at 87 per cent. In terms of graduate completion rates, the U of A garnered 61.4 per cent—the lowest of the 13.

“It’s one number I don’t think you’ll be seeing too often in our centennial messages,” said Students’ Union President Michael Janz. “I see it as a warning bell on a large, systemic problem here at our university.”

Both Janz and Graduate Students’ Association (GSA) President Julie Charchun explained that as there’s no exodus survey, they would like to have some tangible answers as to why so many students leave.

Charchun further said one concern these results reinforce is that graduate students often get “lured” to universities with huge entrance scholarships, but that funding tends to trickle out as their programs go on.

“There is no guarantee of what your funding is going to look like after a few years, or even after your first year, and so that might be part of the reason too that students are unable to complete,” Charchun said.

But U of A Provost and Vice-President (Academic) Carl Amrhein stressed the challenge of making comparisons across different systems because of varying standards, structures, jurisdiction laws, and regulations that affect student mobility.

“For example [...] in Ontario, there is no possibility of moving easily among the colleges and universities,” he said. In contrast, Amrhein said that students might simply leave the U of A to transfer to another Alberta institution to complete their education.

“In Alberta, [that student] is viewed in these statistics as a lost student. But in fact, they’re not lost at all. They just found another institution and completed their program.”

Furthermore, Amrhein said that while the administration shares the students’ desire to understand these figures, he doesn’t view an exodus survey as the most cost-effective solution.

“$50 000 spent on a survey is an instructor not hired in the classroom, so I’m always reluctant if there are other less expensive options available,” he said, adding that once the Alberta Postsecondary Application System (APAS) is launched, it will be easier to know whether students who leave the U of A are in fact leaving their studies for good.

Under APAS, all postsecondary institutions in Alberta would adhere to a single uniform identifying number for each provincial student, and the common application system, Amrhein said, is “supposed to come online in the next twelve months or so.”

Overwhelmingly, both Amrhein and student leaders cite Alberta’s booming economy as a major deterrent for students to stay in school. Amrhein said that so long as the job market remains so attractive, his ideal undergraduate completion rate would be in the range of 70–75 per cent.

“However, I would argue for students to not leave school for an extra year’s income in the oil patch because the evidence is over their life, completing a degree is worth a huge pot of money,” he stressed.

While Janz agreed that Alberta’s economy is a tangible explanation, he said that it doesn’t overshadow the impact affordability has on students.

“We do know from surveys like the National Survey of Student Engagement [that] affordability is listed as a major concern that students have,” Janz said, adding that for many students, the prospect of debt may deter them from postsecondary studies.

“It’d be interesting to know our completion rates back when education was a lot more affordable,” Janz said.

However, Amrhein also pointed to inadequate funding as major obstacle facing the U of A.

“I think the biggest issue [at the graduate level] is that we are way, way, way behind on funding for masters students,” he said.

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