Okay – so this recent Washington Post article by Jay Matthews has a catchy title. What are the sources for these gems? As it turns out the author cites a scholarly work: “College Student Retention: Formula for Student Success,” edited by Alan Seidman and published by the American Council on Education and Praeger. In particular he extracts a few key points from the piece by Alexander W. Astin and Leticia Oseguera of UCLA entitled “Pre-College and Institutional Influences on Degree Attainment,” on page 245. The work is based on extensive surveying at UCLA’s Higher Education Research Institute which produces an annual survey of about 400,000 college freshmen across the country. The Post author presents their most intriguing findings as a list: Five Weird Ways to College Success. Excerpts of Mathews list follow… with a few of my own comments in square brackets. [ ]
1. Pick a college with lots of Catholics . – This conclusion is based on Astin’s own research, and like all such factors, it is only one of many things that might improve your chances of college graduation.
2. Don’t smoke – smoking had one of the largest negative associations with degree completion.
3. Don’t read for pleasure . [!?!!] Could it be that undergraduates who read for pleasure are the most likely to resist undergraduates’ weary routine of lectures and sections and required reading lists, and drop out college to … [do whatever]
4. Don’t consider yourself artistic, creative or understanding of others . [!??!! - similar to above]
5. Don’t major in engineering .
The research also points to success factors such as: having rich parents happy in their marriages and getting good grades in high school. Working part-time in college (but only on campus) or doing lots of student activities also helps.
[So - Goodwin folks - does anyone have any thoughts on that you'd like to share? Nose to the grindstone, non-smoking, non-reading and non-engineering! Whatever happenned to "finding yourself" in college?!?]
For full text of the article: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/06/13/AR2006061300628_pf.html
