LITTLE ROCK, Ark.— Less than 40 percent of students who enroll in Arkansas public universities obtain a degree within six years, according to a new state report.
The annual Report on Student Retention and Graduation was compiled by the state Department of Higher Education and given to the state Higher Education Coordinating Board on Friday.
It said 4,333 of the 11,527 students who enrolled in four-year public universities in 2004 had graduated from those schools by 2009. That’s a graduation rate of only 38 percent.
The rate has stayed fairly steady over the past five years, fluctuating between 37 percent and 38 percent, said Jim Purcell, director of the Higher Education Department.
He called the lack of improvement troublesome.
“We do have a ways to go,” Purcell said. “We definitely need to increase our productivity.”
The graduation rate is even lower at the state’s two-year colleges, with just 1,004 of 5,831 students who enrolled in 2007 graduating with an associate’s degree by 2009 – a rate of 17 percent, according to the report.
