File photo/The Daily Cougar
With a four-year graduation rate of 16.5 percent and a six-year graduation rate of 45.7 percent, it’s difficult for UH to rival the best Texas colleges when almost half of the student body doesn’t have a degree after six years of enrollment.
Granted, many UH students are nontraditional. Many work at night to pay for the classes they take during the day. Many have bills to pay and families to support, and many are older students returning to school.
The fact that it takes these students longer than four years to graduate has nothing to do with laziness. Choosing to add school to an already demanding schedule proves ambition, but there are only so many classes these students can take.
If you do have the luxury of time and can manage 15 hours a semester, then it’s probably best to take them. Financially, it doesn’t make much sense to stick around longer than needed.
In 1936, Hugh Roy Cullen said, “The University of Houston must always be a college for working men and women and their sons and daughters.” To this day, it has been.
Still, UH is unsatisfied with the graduation rates and understandably so. The statistics don’t look good for a school trying to rise in the national rankings.
The University has urged students to take 15 hours a semester to ensure on-time graduation and though it would be ideal for all the students to do so, for some it’s impossible.
UH proudly claims to be a school for the working man and woman, but at the same time, pushes for full courseloads and quick graduations. UH can’t decide what it wants to be.
Does it want to be a school that truly supports working students and provides an opportunity for those who otherwise wouldn’t be able to attend a major university? Or does it want to be a traditional school with traditional students, on-campus communities and four-year graduates?
Until the University decides, it’s going to be hard to change.
If UH is to compete with Texas’ most respected colleges, we need stricter admission standards. It’s not outlandish to expect our incoming students to be the best. Our professors are just as qualified as those schools with stricter admission policies, and they deserve students dedicated to class.
However, by tightening up admissions, a significant number of students dependent on UH would have to look elsewhere. Not every student walking on campus today had perfect scores coming out of high school, but each of them contributes to the character and personality of our school. If we began to accept only the top students, our reputation would improve, but UH would be a very different university.
Whether or not we should sacrifice the demographic of our campus to increase numbers is not an easy choice to make, considering how important diversity has become to the University.
Our diversity is something to be proud of, and though our graduation rates undoubtedly need improving, there’s a reason the numbers are the way they are. Being a unique school creates unique dilemmas.
Whether you’re a part-time commuter or a full-time student living on campus, we’d all love to see UH get more recognition for the great school it is. But as we push toward becoming a school like UT or Texas A&M, we lose a bit of our foundation in the process.
If we’re a school that caters to the worker, then we should embrace it. If we want quick graduates, then we should focus on traditional students.
UH is trying to commit to both, and as great as that would be, it seems too difficult to actualize. All it’s done so far is create stagnancy.
Lucas Sepulveda is a creative writing senior and may be reached at [email protected].
I completely agree. This school is unique because of the amount of students that work while going to school. I chose UH because I knew they would cater to my needs as a full time student/worker. I am proud I will graduate after 5 years of hard work. UH should pride itself of what type of school it is instead of trying to be like UT or A&M. We are better.
This is a good article. I’d prefer to move toward the traditional 4-yr retention rates and minimize subjecting the demographic, if possible.
While agree with most of your points, like Kristin, I believe that we need to find our own way and make our own mark. We shouldn’t try to be UT or A&M. They’ve reached the level they’re currently at by paving their own way.
Sadly, being in such close proximity to the 3rd Ward doesn’t help in become a more prestigious school. If potentially new students don’t feel the campus provides a safe environment, why would they risk coming to UH?
Until then, expect the status quo.
“I would found an institution where any person can find instruction in any study.” – Ezra Cornell, 1868
Universities and their place in the world evolve. Cornell University is hardly available to “any person” who wants to study there, but no one would seriously argue for it becoming an open admission university. UH has reached the point where it has the oportunity and ability to become a world class university. Just as Cornell University didn’t hold itself to a vision from a distant past that would have limited its growth, UH needs to move forward and upward.
If UH wants students to graduate quickly then they shouldn’t make it so hard for us. Several of my colleagues (myself included) have been victim to the shoddy workings of an education bureaucracy that have prolonged our time as students. For every person who reads this article and thinks that UH students can try harder, three people are thinking that UH is the one that should try harder.
How many of us have been told that we were on track to graduate, only to find out four months before graduating, that there was a class we needed to take that no one told us about? How many times have petitions been lost or fell through, after our advisers assured us that everything was going fine?
Some say that personal responsibility should play a part in it all. Instead of relying on advisers, do the research on what classes you need to take. After all, all the information concerning course requirements are available on the UH website. But, as the article states, “UH proudly claims to be a school for the working man and woman,” meaning that some of us don’t have time to look up our requirements which is why we rely on the UH staff and faculty to help us.
A university should be about the students, but with the obsession of 4-year graduation looming over everyone’s heads, UH has shown itself, time and again, to be about statistics. Graduation rates are a red herring; Tier One status has taken precedence in the eyes of this administration.
The temporary employees running the Welcome Center are no help either. UH should be proud of their lax admission standards because they’re giving people a chance to better themselves. But you have people who have no idea what they are doing dealing with people who have no idea what they are doing. I wouldn’t be surprised if a financial aid department employee’s first day on the job was his first time seeing a FAFSA.
Unfortunately, I’m one of the “working man” students of UH, so I will be unable to attend Khator’s Fall address. I hope she does not fill her speech with rhetoric about the obstacles she has overcome and Tier One status, but instead chooses to focus on the obstacles that her students are facing and finding a solution that works.
This university has moved past the “remedial institution” phase. The problem I see as a graduate student is that the level of instruction/academic rigor of this university is beyond the ability of many students. The “commuter crowd” here struggles largely because the academics (at least in Bauer) are not geared toward part-time students. This is far from a bad thing.
The University has evolved and is evolving. If you observe the stats from Dr. Khator’s fall address, you will see a marked increase in the quality of the incoming freshmen. As time goes on and selectivity goes up, I believe that the gap between student ability and academic rigor will close. I believe that this will also naturally push slower 6 year plus graduators away from the school. Again this is a good thing.
A degree is worth what the public perception of the institution deems it to be worth, and in order to make the degree more valuable, UH will have to continue to become more prestigious. The demand is obviously in place. We have the largest, most talented freshman class in school history, there are waitlists for on-campus housing and companies are recruiting off of our campus like never before. This is obviously a good thing.
I think there will be a conflict between “change resistors/commuter/ part time students” and the newer breed of more traditional students. The direction the school is moving is obviously going to create some hard feelings as part time students become less catered to. The school has been in evolve mode since 2005 and many people have yet to fully embrace that fact.
As an added note I have never bought the whole “I need more financial aid argument”. I have multiple friends who came from very humble backgrounds who financed degrees at UT, TAMU, Stanford, and UPenn through scholarships, multiple internships, grants and a little debt. All are very successful. I personally funded my Undergrad and Master’s here through Veteran benefits , scholarships, and multiple internships. Finished an undergrad in 3.5 years…..
Hard work begets reward. Higher quality academics brings more opportunity for scholarship and grants, another reason to keep on trucking up and away.
I was gonna post all this stuff about the problems I have a UH.
but maybe I just cheat my way to the top like everybody else and rob @jeremy to pay for it, while the admin robs all us blind. *Priscila-SLADED*
I <3 3rd Ward!!
I think a new student success program needs to be created focusing on 3 core problems. high school + major/advising + time frame. I know gifted students that where top of their class in high school and got to UH to take longer than 6yrs to graduate because they couldn’t decide on what major, got bad advising, or switch between UH sister campuses.