A nuanced picture of college completion rates in southern U.S. states emerged Tuesday with the release of a study report that shows most of the states trailing the national average—a trend that the report’s authors say could have negative implications for the region’s workforce and its increasingly diverse student population if things don’t improve.
But while the study released Tuesday paints a disquieting portrait of college degree attainment for minorities in the South, education policy experts say it simply highlights a problem that has been occurring in the South for years.
“The findings of the report are not anything new,” said Dr. Mikyung Ryu, associate director of the Center for Policy Analysis at the American Council on Education, a Washington, D.C.-based higher education organization that represents presidents and chancellors of accredited, degree-granting institutions throughout the United States.
Ryu was referring to the study released Tuesday by the Southern Regional Education Board entitled Measuring Success by Degrees: The Status of Completion in SREB States.
The SREB study found that, of the 16 Southern states that comprise the membership of the Southern Regional Education Board (SREB), a nonprofit education policy organization, 10 states had graduation rates in their public four-year colleges and universities in 2008 that lagged behind the national average of 55 percent. Collectively, the SREB states had a graduation average of 53 percent at their public four-year institutions.
The six states that exceeded the national average are Delaware (67 percent), Florida (59 percent), Maryland (65 percent), North Carolina (59 percent), South Carolina (60 percent) and Virginia (67 percent).
The 10 states that trailed the national average are Alabama (48 percent), Arkansas (37 percent), Georgia (50 percent), Kentucky (48 percent), Louisiana (38 percent), Mississippi (49 percent), Oklahoma (47 percent), Tennessee (48 percent), Texas (49 percent) and West Virginia (48 percent).
