I am always digging into statistics on the American education system including the colleges and universities. The deeper I dig, the worse it looks. Try these numbers and see what you think?
* 11.7% of the kids at the University of Wisconsin Madison were born outside the USA.
* Only 43% of Black kids who get into college actually graduate.
* Only 63% of Non-Blacks who get into college actually graduate.
* Only 36% of Black males who get into college actually graduate.
* 95% of kids who get into Harvard graduate.
* 87% of kids who get into Columbia graduate.
* 22% of kids who graduate college in Russia earn engineering or technical degrees.
* 16.7% of kids who graduate from UW Madison were born outside the USA. This is because of their high rate of graduation compared to kids born in the USA.
What can be done about the low graduation rates? The taxpayers spend all this money on kids who don't graduate. This means that the cost per actual degree is almost twice the cost of sending one kid thru college. For Blacks, they cost double per degree because they graduate at less than 50%. If Harvard graduates 95% of their students, which degree is cheaper? How much do you think that it costs taxpayers for a Black male degree, given that only about 1/3 ever graduate?
When I have discussed these numbers with friends, they all say that it is too late for the USA. The damage has already been done. They site engineering and technical degrees as an even worse problem since the USA has been going down since 1986 in the number of engineering degrees in the face of increased college enrollments. We are spending much more and getting less for the money. I don't even want to dig into the statistics on student loans. When I graduated, I did not know a single student who had a student loan and most did not have a car loan either or a charge card, for that matter. Things have changed and not for the better.
