Colorlines, News Report, Posted: Sep 28, 2011

 Will today’s generation of young people be the first in history to be less educated than their parents? New findings from a study conducted by Complete College America, a non-profit founded two years ago with financing from the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, suggests that may be the case.

The report “Time is the Enemy” found a significant portion of the nation’s college students are going to school part time.* The trouble is that part time students have lower graduation rates than full-time students. Seventy-five percent of today’s students are juggling some combination of family, jobs, and school while commuting to class. Even when given twice as long to complete certificates and degrees, no more than a quarter of part time students ever make it to graduation day.

The study found that even though there are more poor students and students of color entering college, “too few end up with certificates,” the authors wrote.

The report sites several obstacles that keep students from graduating. One of the main concerns is that students spend too much time taking remedial classes, and most end up “trapped in broken remedial approaches that don’t help,” according to the report.

In California, for example, the average Cal State student is taking anywhere between 5.2 to 5.7 years to graduate with a degree that should take only four years to complete. Utah has some of the longest degree completion times, with full-time students graduating in an average of 6.7 years while part-time students take close to eight years to finish school. And this is if students make it to graduation. Read more here.