San Diego State among CSU success stories amid yearslong graduation push

This article first appeared in EdSource California State University is marking the end of a decade-long effort to improve graduation rates with mixed results While CSU has had long-term success in buoying the share of students who earn bachelor s degrees chosen metrics this year stayed flat and equity goals remained stubbornly out of reach Systemwide CSU has exceeded only one of the ambitious goals it set in That s the two-year graduation rate for transfer students which beat CSU s goal over the -year graduation initiative by less than a percentage point Other similar metrics missed their targets despite overall movement in the right direction And while CSU had hoped to bring low-income and other historically underserved students up to the graduation rates of their peers equity gaps instead widened over the decade With a wide variety of results across the system certain campuses evidenced four-year rates over while others notched rates half as high But CSU representatives were mainly in an upbeat mood at an event unveiling the preliminary graduation figures They celebrated standout campuses like San Diego State and Cal State Monterey Bay where four-year graduation rates over the decade climbed by double-digit percentage points This is not a sad story Dilcie Perez the chief trainee affairs officer of the CSU reported at an event charting the university system s transition as its graduation initiative comes to an end If we had not set those goals we would have never made it to where we re at in the CSU We are making a difference We are making changes for the citizens of California Still Perez revealed the CSU hit stiff headwinds in its progress especially as a pandemic-driven shift to online classes disrupted students social connections on campus and worsened mental robustness five years ago Those challenges hindered low-income students preponderance of all she added const iframe document getElementById newspack-iframe-Gp RaSlBvPOc const timerId setInterval function iframe src iframe src iframe onload function clearInterval timerId Add a listener for dynamic resizing if the iframe supports it window addEventListener message function event Reject messages from untrusted origins if event origin new URL iframe src origin iframe contentWindow event source return var iframeHeight if event input event figures height if typeof event input height number iframeHeight event figures height else if typeof event evidence height string iframeHeight Number event input height if isNaN iframeHeight iframeHeight Remove height from the iframe's parent element if needed if iframe parentElement iframe parentElement style height auto iframe parentElement style height auto Set the new height dynamically iframe style height iframeHeight px With the -year graduation targets in their rearview mirrors CSU functionaries now have a new target putting CSU graduates on a path to the first jobs of their careers or to graduate school The new effort which CSU calls its Pupil Success Framework also focuses on themes like affordability career and academic advising and experiential learning among others CSU launched its graduation initiative in as chosen campuses confronted abysmally low completion rates For example less than of first-time freshmen at Sacramento State were graduating in four years at the start of the effort That was up to last year Campuses and the system took various policies in pursuit of the targets like removing non-credit remedial courses improving pupil advising streamlining various majors reexamining approaches to financial aid and seeking to entice students to reenroll if they dropped out of school Over the program of the decade the system of campuses saw the largest graduation increases among first-time freshmen finishing in four years and transfer students completing their degrees in two years In of first-time freshmen graduated in four years up from in and about a percentage point higher than in The two-year graduation rate for transfer students rose more than percentage point in to continuing a rebound after COVID-era dips and from a starting point of Progress among students who took longer to graduate was more incremental The six-year graduation rate for first-time freshmen leveled off at in about the same as the year before and up almost percentage points from Similarly the four-year rate for transfer students was just shy of in up slightly from and nearly percentage points since The system finished the decade more than percentage points below its goals for both rates And while CSU had hoped to erase the gap between students who do and do not receive federal Pell Grants the six-year graduation rate disparity among first-time freshmen instead grew from almost in to more than in For the same metric the gap between historically underserved students a term CSU uses to refer to American Indian Black and Hispanic students as a group and students of all other races and ethnicities increased percentage points over the decade from nearly in to almost in CSU also tracks graduation rates for its campuses all of which have been assigned varying goals The university system publishes campus-level content on a dashboard available online While all demonstrated improvement over the decade wide differences persist among the campuses For example Cal Poly San Luis Obispo displayed a top-flying four-year completion rate with San Diego State just behind at In contrast Cal State Dominguez Hills reached and Cal State East Bay hit in that category though each had six-year graduation rates more than twice as high The review of the CSU s progress on those goals comes as the Trump administration cuts selected federal grant funding and pressures higher instruction to overhaul wide-ranging campus programs on diversity and other issues to align with its political agenda CSU verified in late September that it is the subject of federal probes into alleged antisemitism and racial discrimination Among other disruptions the U S Department of Tuition has moved to end a grant plan for Hispanic-Serving Institutions a designation held by California State University campuses On the federal front we re facing real and likely disinvestment in higher instruction targeted legal action and a dizzying number of threats to our majority of fundamental core values CSU Chancellor Mildred Garc a revealed in opening remarks at Wednesday s event Believe me we will continue to stand strong against these threats Perez announced CSU faces questions every day about what are we going to do in response to our national environment Her answer Help students graduate and start their careers There is no greater effort no greater response than us banding together and graduating more students and closing the equity gaps and changing the social mobility and economic mobility of our students Perez noted EdSource is California s largest independent newsroom focused on Guidance