New Report Labels Michigan Public Universities “Dropout Factories”

Michigan's public universities received really poor scores in a recent report released by ThirdWay.org, a nonpartisan think tank based in Washington, D.C.  The report was based on graduation rate, price, and the Department of Education’s College Scorecards.

It's important to note that the report is using a data set of students who are first-year, full time students with federal loans.

According to an article written by the Detroit Free Press, "if Michigan's 15 public universities were judged by the same criteria as K-12 schools, 12 of them would be labeled as dropout factories that fail to graduate fewer than two-thirds of their students."

Of the 12 Michigan schools called out by the report, Oakland and Wayne State Universities received the lowest ratings.  The report quotes the schools as both having below a 50% graduation rate (49.29% graduation rate for Oakland and a 43.15% graduation rate for Wayne State), and of those graduating, 1/3 earn below $25,000 six years from graduation.

Schools all across the nation are speaking out against this report saying that due to the subset of students ThirdWay.org used, the information is not actually representitive of the entire student body.

The University of Michigan and Michigan State University have the two highest graduation rates of public universities in the state with 90.31% and 78.24% respectively.