40% stat that should concern SJU upper management

[19854ever]

i was perusing US news and world report and noticed that 40% of SJU students graduate in 4 years. So I looked at schools that compare to us locally Seton Hall, Fordham,Hofstra and Adelphi.

All are above 50% Seton Hall is at 56%. Adelpi and Hofstra at 50%.

FYI Fordham is at 75%.

What is causing this crisis?

Are people graduating in 5 years?
is it one of the below:

Tuition cost, unmotivated students, bad professors

maybe a student or younger more recent alum can answer this, but I was shocked we have dropped so low.

How in hell are we losing to Adelphi?

 

[beast of the east]

i was perusing US news and world report and noticed that 40% of SJU students graduate in 4 years. So I looked at schools that compare to us locally Seton Hall, Fordham,Hofstra and Adelphi.

All are above 50% Seton Hall is at 56%. Adelpi and Hofstra at 50%.

FYI Fordham is at 75%.

What is causing this crisis?

Are people graduating in 5 years?
is it one of the below:

Tuition cost, unmotivated students, bad professors

maybe a student or younger more recent alum can answer this, but I was shocked we have dropped so low.

How in hell are we losing to Adelphi?

My guess. 40% of our students are Pell grant eligible. My gues sis that many of them do not have the same academic qualifications that students at Fordham have. While there is nothing wrong with accepting Pell eligible students, when 40% of your student population is Pell eligible, there's a very good chance that the school is not being very selective in the selection process.

There is a strong correlation with quality of a university and the graduation rate. Great students = high grad rates. Crappy students = lower grad rate.

 

[fuchsia]

Or STJ students are much more vulnerable to family economic difficulties and persevere to return and finish even after being forced to suspend attendance and help out economically at home.

 

[tom in salem]

Or STJ students are much more vulnerable to family economic difficulties and persevere to return and finish even after being forced to suspend attendance and help out economically at home.

plus 100 karma for you if i could.

 

[beast of the east]

Or STJ students are much more vulnerable to family economic difficulties and persevere to return and finish even after being forced to suspend attendance and help out economically at home.

It would be nice only if that were true in a statistically relevant % of the student population. I suspect that the school gives these students substantial grants funded by our most generous alumni, and then socked the student with low cost student loans so that working part time or full time (it seems nearly all my SJU classmates did that) becomes unnecessary. Supporting that postulation is the fact that as soon as subsidized student loans went away, our incoming freshman enrollment dropped precipitously.

This is not to say that we should not be sympathetic to financial woes of our poorest students (the best way to empathize with these students is to write SJU a check today and earmark it for that purpose).

What I am saying is that academically deficiencies far outweigh economic situation. Fordham, Holy Cross, and BC (most Jesuit schools) also have a policy of making up the difference in tuition and that ability of a student to pay. All have markedly better graduation rates because all accept markedly better students.

How does this affect alumni from 10-20-30-40 years ago? By admitting academically deficient students, the school has unintentionally devalued a St. John's degree. Go to any great Catholic University on the upswing - Villanova, Holy Cross, Boston College, or Georgetown, and alumni from a generation ago will laugh and tell you that they couldn't get into those schools today based on their academic credentials back then. However, the value of their degree has dramatically increased over that of an SJU degree. If even for selfish reasons, SJU alums should be concerned about this.

Give a man a crutch, he's a cripple for life. Give him the opportunity to educate himself, he can become a sprinter.

 

[Valgoth]

Ive been looking at colleges this year for my son. We've looked at alot of school from stanford to wisconsin to hopkins, ect. Most of the upper tier schools ( ivy, and that type) boast over 95% graduating in 4 years. Ive been to a few college fairs and talked to his friends and as much as I hate to say this SJU has become a joke to kids. Most SUNYs have passed it by , sure cost plays a part. I think alot of the better academic kids will opt for the 22K at Suny than the 50K at SJU. Its sad because when I went to pharmacy school we were way in front of LIU brooklyn in terms of reputation. Now its totally the opposite. Hopefully the change in president helps swing this the other way.

I think they are trying though. My son got a no cost application the other day so they are trying to lure kids there with some perks. He got the app fee waived and he didnt have to do an essay if he applied. I think those perks are SAT/ACT based.

 

[Andrew]

I was the recipient of a Pell Grant and graduated college in four years.

 

[beast of the east]

Ive been looking at colleges this year for my son. We've looked at alot of school from stanford to wisconsin to hopkins, ect. Most of the upper tier schools ( ivy, and that type) boast over 95% graduating in 4 years. Ive been to a few college fairs and talked to his friends and as much as I hate to say this SJU has become a joke to kids. Most SUNYs have passed it by , sure cost plays a part. I think alot of the better academic kids will opt for the 22K at Suny than the 50K at SJU. Its sad because when I went to pharmacy school we were way in front of LIU brooklyn in terms of reputation. Now its totally the opposite. Hopefully the change in president helps swing this the other way.

I think they are trying though. My son got a no cost application the other day so they are trying to lure kids there with some perks. He got the app fee waived and he didnt have to do an essay if he applied. I think those perks are SAT/ACT based.

In addition, they process your app right away. Most bright kids opting for SUNY choose Binghamton or Stony Brook.

 

[beast of the east]

I was the recipient of a Pell Grant and graduated college in four years.

Congratulations, and good job.

 

[panther2]

i was perusing US news and world report and noticed that 40% of SJU students graduate in 4 years. So I looked at schools that compare to us locally Seton Hall, Fordham,Hofstra and Adelphi.

All are above 50% Seton Hall is at 56%. Adelpi and Hofstra at 50%.

FYI Fordham is at 75%.

What is causing this crisis?

Are people graduating in 5 years?
is it one of the below:

Tuition cost, unmotivated students, bad professors

maybe a student or younger more recent alum can answer this, but I was shocked we have dropped so low.

How in hell are we losing to Adelphi?

My guess. 40% of our students are Pell grant eligible. My gues sis that many of them do not have the same academic qualifications that students at Fordham have. While there is nothing wrong with accepting Pell eligible students, when 40% of your student population is Pell eligible, there's a very good chance that the school is not being very selective in the selection process.

There is a strong correlation with quality of a university and the graduation rate. Great students = high grad rates. Crappy students = lower grad rate.

A Pell Grant has absolutely nothing to do with intelligence. It is based on Family income. I don't know what point you are trying to make with this statement. When enrolled at St Johns, I was 34 years old and working full time. Because I had a family I received maximum Pell and Tap. I graduated in 4 years and then received my Masters Degree from NYU.
Please do not make blanket statements about any person or group unless you have the facts to back it up.

 

[beast of the east]

i was perusing US news and world report and noticed that 40% of SJU students graduate in 4 years. So I looked at schools that compare to us locally Seton Hall, Fordham,Hofstra and Adelphi.

All are above 50% Seton Hall is at 56%. Adelpi and Hofstra at 50%.

FYI Fordham is at 75%.

What is causing this crisis?

Are people graduating in 5 years?
is it one of the below:

Tuition cost, unmotivated students, bad professors

maybe a student or younger more recent alum can answer this, but I was shocked we have dropped so low.

How in hell are we losing to Adelphi?

My guess. 40% of our students are Pell grant eligible. My gues sis that many of them do not have the same academic qualifications that students at Fordham have. While there is nothing wrong with accepting Pell eligible students, when 40% of your student population is Pell eligible, there's a very good chance that the school is not being very selective in the selection process.

There is a strong correlation with quality of a university and the graduation rate. Great students = high grad rates. Crappy students = lower grad rate.

A Pell Grant has absolutely nothing to do with intelligence. It is based on Family income. I don't know what point you are trying to make with this statement. When enrolled at St Johns, I was 34 years old and working full time. Because I had a family I received maximum Pell and Tap. I graduated in 4 years and then received my Masters Degree from NYU.
Please do not make blanket statements about any person or group unless you have the facts to back it up.

You can believe whatever you want and twist your eligibility to say it was because you had a family, but the bottom line is you received it because your income was low. 95.9% of Pell awards in 2014 went to students whose adjusted family income was $50,000 or less. If you want to express that you are the typical Pell recipient at SJU, that is certainly not true and you know it.

But when 40% of a student population is Pell eligible, and there is a commensurate decline in graduation rate, you can be certain that they are admitting too many students that are Pell eligible that are underqualified. You can be certain that none of the schools mentioned with much higher graduation rates are admitting so many Pell eligible students, so tell me how you would account for that?

 

[Red.Fans]

It did not seem to me that Panther was twisting anything. I think you're getting a bad reaction because it sounds like you're saying that poor people are bad students.

I guess the question is Beast, are you saying that poor people are bad students that skew graduation rates, or that a school accepts bad students that might otherwise not be deserving of admittance, in order to get Pell money?

 

[redfanUp9]

I did not go to SJU but I do know that Pell Grant Grad rates at my University were 20% lower than Non-Pell Grad Rates. I don't think it has anything to do with intellegence but it likely has alot to do with being able to concentrate on ones studies and graduate within 4 or even 6 years. (I say 6 because that was the data availible at my Univeristy) Pell grant Students are more likely to be working full time, and facer other obstacles that a kid who has parents paying for everything might not have to deal with.

 

[beast of the east]

It did not seem to me that Panther was twisting anything. I think you're getting a bad reaction because it sounds like you're saying that poor people are bad students.

I guess the question is Beast, are you saying that poor people are bad students that skew graduation rates, or that a school accepts bad students that might otherwise not be deserving of admittance, in order to get Pell money?

I've made this assertion before, that SJU has admitted many Pell students in order to pad their revenues.

It's ridiculous to postulate that poor students are less intelligent. I am asserting that it's no coincidence that 40% of SJU students are Pell eligible. You can be pretty certain that the Pell eligible students at better schools are subjected to much more rigorous admission criteria, and do not have an adverse impact on overall graduation rates, and as such are a much lower percentage of the student population. I do not think the school would publish graduation rates for Pell eligible vs. non-Pell eligible students. I do believe that you would discover that a disproportionate amount of Pell eligible students at SJU are not graduating at all, and as such are left with the responsibility of replaying student loans that were granted with low rates and loosened requirements. I've asserted for a long time that with 15,000 undergrads, 6,000 of them Pell eligible, SJU is reeling in $30 million per year in government funds for these students with little regard for their ability to complete a college degree.

 

[redfanUp9]

my school was required by law to publish pell vs non-pell but maybe that was a PA state law.

 

[bobo]

that a school accepts bad students that might otherwise not be deserving of admittance, in order to get Pell money?

With today's economic education crisis, and with schools trying to limit their financial losses as costs keep increasing and enrollment declines, some schools, not saying SJU, but some schools will lower their admission standards to admit less desirable applicants without caring if they can be an asset to the school's community or care if the student will ever graduate only to collect tuition money from Federal and State agencies to reduce their losses. It's a business today more than a learning institution in some cases.

 

[Andrew]

Or STJ students are much more vulnerable to family economic difficulties and persevere to return and finish even after being forced to suspend attendance and help out economically at home.

It would be nice only if that were true in a statistically relevant % of the student population. I suspect that the school gives these students substantial grants funded by our most generous alumni, and then socked the student with low cost student loans so that working part time or full time (it seems nearly all my SJU classmates did that) becomes unnecessary. Supporting that postulation is the fact that as soon as subsidized student loans went away, our incoming freshman enrollment dropped precipitously.

This is not to say that we should not be sympathetic to financial woes of our poorest students (the best way to empathize with these students is to write SJU a check today and earmark it for that purpose).

What I am saying is that academically deficiencies far outweigh economic situation. Fordham, Holy Cross, and BC (most Jesuit schools) also have a policy of making up the difference in tuition and that ability of a student to pay. All have markedly better graduation rates because all accept markedly better students.

How does this affect alumni from 10-20-30-40 years ago? By admitting academically deficient students, the school has unintentionally devalued a St. John's degree. Go to any great Catholic University on the upswing - Villanova, Holy Cross, Boston College, or Georgetown, and alumni from a generation ago will laugh and tell you that they couldn't get into those schools today based on their academic credentials back then. However, the value of their degree has dramatically increased over that of an SJU degree. If even for selfish reasons, SJU alums should be concerned about this.

Give a man a crutch, he's a cripple for life.

Give him the opportunity to educate himself, he can become a sprinter.

You seem to be enamored with Villanova but I am not as familiar with that school as I am with Georgetown. I don't consider Georgetown an up and coming school because it was a great school 25 - 30 years ago when I was starting college. In no way was it even comparable to St. John's academically. I grew up in Queens in the 80's and the only top students that I know that went to St. John's got substantial scholarships and lived at home to keep the cost of college down. The St. John's you remember must be 40-50 years ago and I would argue that Queens college was the better school at that time and might actually be today as well.

 

[Valgoth]

Ive been looking at colleges this year for my son. We've looked at alot of school from stanford to wisconsin to hopkins, ect. Most of the upper tier schools ( ivy, and that type) boast over 95% graduating in 4 years. Ive been to a few college fairs and talked to his friends and as much as I hate to say this SJU has become a joke to kids. Most SUNYs have passed it by , sure cost plays a part. I think alot of the better academic kids will opt for the 22K at Suny than the 50K at SJU. Its sad because when I went to pharmacy school we were way in front of LIU brooklyn in terms of reputation. Now its totally the opposite. Hopefully the change in president helps swing this the other way.

I think they are trying though. My son got a no cost application the other day so they are trying to lure kids there with some perks. He got the app fee waived and he didnt have to do an essay if he applied. I think those perks are SAT/ACT based.

In addition, they process your app right away. Most bright kids opting for SUNY choose Binghamton or Stony Brook.

funny you say that, one of the schools he is applying to is binghamton

 

[beast of the east]

Or STJ students are much more vulnerable to family economic difficulties and persevere to return and finish even after being forced to suspend attendance and help out economically at home.

It would be nice only if that were true in a statistically relevant % of the student population. I suspect that the school gives these students substantial grants funded by our most generous alumni, and then socked the student with low cost student loans so that working part time or full time (it seems nearly all my SJU classmates did that) becomes unnecessary. Supporting that postulation is the fact that as soon as subsidized student loans went away, our incoming freshman enrollment dropped precipitously.

This is not to say that we should not be sympathetic to financial woes of our poorest students (the best way to empathize with these students is to write SJU a check today and earmark it for that purpose).

What I am saying is that academically deficiencies far outweigh economic situation. Fordham, Holy Cross, and BC (most Jesuit schools) also have a policy of making up the difference in tuition and that ability of a student to pay. All have markedly better graduation rates because all accept markedly better students.

How does this affect alumni from 10-20-30-40 years ago? By admitting academically deficient students, the school has unintentionally devalued a St. John's degree. Go to any great Catholic University on the upswing - Villanova, Holy Cross, Boston College, or Georgetown, and alumni from a generation ago will laugh and tell you that they couldn't get into those schools today based on their academic credentials back then. However, the value of their degree has dramatically increased over that of an SJU degree. If even for selfish reasons, SJU alums should be concerned about this.

Give a man a crutch, he's a cripple for life.

Give him the opportunity to educate himself, he can become a sprinter.

You seem to be enamored with Villanova but I am not as familiar with that school as I am with Georgetown. I don't consider Georgetown an up and coming school because it was a great school 25 - 30 years ago when I was starting college. In no way was it even comparable to St. John's academically. I grew up in Queens in the 80's and the only top students that I know that went to St. John's got substantial scholarships and lived at home to keep the cost of college down. The St. John's you remember must be 40-50 years ago and I would argue that Queens college was the better school at that time and might actually be today as well.

Overall in the 70s top to bottom, Queens College in my opinion had more rigorous admission standards. I would also argue that back then the top tier students at SJU competed well with any of the schools mentioned in my post, and in significant numbers. Friends I know who attended Georgetown in the 70s refer to the Ewing effect - that along with the tremendous success of the basketball program came a flood of applications that helped the school to elite academic status. the same can be said of Duke to some extent as well. In that timeframe (1970s) the gap between SJU, Boston College, and Villanova was much narrower than you would believe considering the huge gap between those schools today. I mention those three other schools, becuase, Georgetown, Boston College, Villanova, along with Holy Cross are generally regarded as the best academic Catholic Universities in the East. Of the four schools I am least familiar with Georgetown, but very familiar with the other 3.

 

[bobo]

Ive been looking at colleges this year for my son. We've looked at alot of school from stanford to wisconsin to hopkins, ect. Most of the upper tier schools ( ivy, and that type) boast over 95% graduating in 4 years. Ive been to a few college fairs and talked to his friends and as much as I hate to say this SJU has become a joke to kids. Most SUNYs have passed it by , sure cost plays a part. I think alot of the better academic kids will opt for the 22K at Suny than the 50K at SJU. Its sad because when I went to pharmacy school we were way in front of LIU brooklyn in terms of reputation. Now its totally the opposite. Hopefully the change in president helps swing this the other way.

I think they are trying though. My son got a no cost application the other day so they are trying to lure kids there with some perks. He got the app fee waived and he didnt have to do an essay if he applied. I think those perks are SAT/ACT based.

Nice that Hopkins is his safety school
Proud parent I'm sure.