Article Analysis Essay on Increasing College Completion

Introduction

The article "Increasing College Completion" highlights issues about college completion by students. Based on the article report, college completion continues to decline, an issue significantly contributed by administrators who only consider enrollment of new students to College, yet fail to strategize on maintaining the enrolled student in the system till the end. In many institution's administration are more concerned with the financial incentives brought about by student enrollment rather than working to keep them in school. Although civil rights have been fighting to see more students from low-income families and students of color are enrolled in school, they forget enrolment is the start of a long journey to success and not the end. The article, therefore, examines possible process and measures applied by government, policymakers and college administration in enhancing college completion.

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According to the article, noticing of the problem has been one of the significant steps towards solving college completion problem in any institution. There has been a glimpse of hope as institutions have begun to recognize that the number of students enrolled is not equal to the number of student completing programs. For example, according to the article, most students who start developmental courses especially those from marginalized groups fail to succeed in college level. Failure of students in developmental education has to remain unsupervised for more than a decade hence causing the student to relax and even drop out of school, leading to a road of failure. Noticing the problem, therefore, is a definite road to rejuvenating learner's performance and ultimately strategize toward keeping the student in school until graduation.

Based on the article also, Policymakers also have in return realized that college leader's interest is more in enrollment of student than maintaining the student in the system and successful completion. Policy makers in many states, therefore, have introduced performance-based degree completion funding and aids as a solution. The government is also buying the policy makers strategy, and they are considering using financial grants for students that are tied to performance and increased student completion rate. Even though collages administrations are not intrinsically motivated to ensuring student completion is must, the government has extrinsic motivation lined up which is the use of performance-based funding. The student will be funded based on performance, and as a result, more student and school administration will have no choice but to vouch for improved performance that will keep the student in the system till graduation.

The article also reflects on the colleges need for strategizing. Even after funding has been done, very little strategizing has been done by college leaders to ensure there is a notable increase in college completion. The completion rate is still way below standards. According to the article in 2004, efforts by Lumina Foundation for Education did not bear fruits after the funding of needy students in 26 community colleges in five states which up to now is linked to over 160 colleges in 34 countries. There was no notable improvement in the rates of students completing developmental and reading courses making it a nightmare to attain a college degree. The MDRC report of 2014 on Achieving the Dream Initiative in 7 years was similar to the finding in the first report. The average student success in college completion was constant. The report was such a shock after all financial support for almost a decade no much change in completion rate was registered. Such news remains alarming since the two group objective is ensuring that student achieved their dreams and based on the reports this was not achieved. Such evidence demand school to get involved in strategizing on a formula to keep the student in school and boost performance. School and college need to have a performance-based strategy that sees to it that every student remain focused on his or her dream in school and motivated toward working for the dream.

Conclusion

In conclusion, the article highlights the problems causing college completion decline and possible solutions to the problem. If relevant persons in the education system can unanimously support the illustrated resolutions, then improvement in student college completion statistics can be registered.

Works Cited

Zachry Rutschow, Elizabeth, et al. "Turning the tide: Five years of Achieving the Dream in community colleges." (2011).