Study: Religious colleges have highest graduation rates

(UNDATED) Religiously affiliated universities rank the highest nationwide in graduating their students, while hundreds of public and private universities fall far below the devastatingly low average of graduated students, according to a recent report based on data from the U.S. Department of Education. From Catholic to Jewish and Baptist to Methodist, religious colleges and universities […]

(UNDATED) Religiously affiliated universities rank the highest nationwide in graduating their students, while hundreds of public and private universities fall far below the devastatingly low average of graduated students, according to a recent report based on data from the U.S. Department of Education.

From Catholic to Jewish and Baptist to Methodist, religious colleges and universities topped the charts in the American Enterprise Institute’s (AEI) survey, which found an average of just 53 percent of entering students at four-year colleges graduate within six years.

Many institutions fared far worse, with graduation rates below 20 and 30 percent for students who entered in the fall of 2001. Religiously affiliated universities, however, rarely appeared in the rock-bottom rankings, and held most of the top 10 slots across six categories of admissions selectivity.


Among the “competitive” category of schools, which require students to have a C to B- high school grade average for admission, 100 percent of the top 10 schools to graduate their students were of religious orientation. The College of Our Lady of the Elms in Chicopee, Mass., graduated 89 percent of their students; Texas Southern University, by contrast, graduated only 12 percent.

The report by AEI, a conservative Washington-based think tank, ranked colleges based on admissions standards that ranged from “most competitive” to “noncompetitive.”

The report cites reasons beyond admissions criteria that affected graduation rates, including student demographics and the schools’ institutional mission. The authors, however, did not explicitly mention the colleges’ religious background as factors.

“While student motivation, intent, and ability matter greatly, our analysis suggests that the practices of higher education institutions matter, too,” the AEI report said.

Brian Williams, the vice president of enrollment at John Carroll University in Cleveland, said religiously affiliated universities produce more graduates because their “mission statement attracts a certain type of student, as well as a certain type of employee.”

“The persistence to help students succeed is inherent in the system,” said Williams, of the Jesuit university, which shared the No. 10 spot among “competitive” colleges with Pennsylvania’s La Salle University and Washington state’s Whitworth University, with a 74-percent graduation rate.


The report focused on the extremes of schools that either fail or succeed at handing out earned degrees. As a disclaimer, the authors repeated that the graduation rates do not always represent the quality of the university per se, but possibly the quality of their mission statements.

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In the “very competitive” category (which requires a B- or B high school grade average), seven of the 10 top-ranked universities have a religious background. The College of Saint Benedict, a women’s Catholic college in St. Joseph, Minn., had a graduation rate of 82 percent; Sierra Nevada College, a private liberal arts school near Lake Tahoe, by contrast, had a 27-percent graduation rate.

Just three religious schools — the University of Notre Dame, Williams College and Duke University — ranked among the “most competitive” schools, which was dominated by the likes of Harvard, Yale and Princeton universities.

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The disparate numbers are leading many educators to speculate on why the institutions with the highest graduation rates are the schools that make God the highest priority.

Catholic universities did especially well, representing 40 percent of the top 10 schools across all six categories.

Richard Yanikoski, the president of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities (ACCU), said Catholic colleges and other religiously oriented schools have programs specifically aimed at at-risk students, as well as faculty that value each student.


“The professors know who their students are,” said Yanikoski, a former professor at Saint Xavier University, a Catholic university in Chicago. “(Students) need to know someone cares and know someone is there for them — someone to meet them halfway and help them. The Catholic universities and the other (religious schools) do a good job.”

Yanikoski said religiously affiliated universities have a history of providing aid to students who are either the first generation in their family to attend college, so they know how to accommodate students in need. He also cited statistics that show students at Catholic schools tend to be better connected in the campus community and are able to find the right resources when they struggle.

Williams said faith in the classrooms is pivotal in keeping students from falling through the cracks. Even after graduation, Williams said, “the moral, spiritual and ethical foundation helps students in a very different and changing world.”

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