The high school-UNC gap
UNC system officials might set stricter admission standards, The News & Observer reports today.
The goal is to improve graduation rates, which are not very good in general (35 percent in four years, 59 percent in six years) and dismal on some campuses (15 percent in four years, 38 percent in six years at A&T, for example).
The best predictor of college success is high school GPA, officials say. So some suggest requiring a minimum high school GPA for admission to any UNC campus.
No problem at the most selective institutions, like UNC-Chapel Hill and N.C. State. But others have more open enrollment policies. For example, A&T granted admission to 82 percent of all applicants in 2005, compared to a systemwide rate of 67 percent. The idea is that greater selectivity up front would produce better graduation rates at the back end.
That stands to reason, but it also raises some questions:
Don't we want to increase higher education opportunities for our young people?
Would this have a drastic and negative effect on college enrollment, at least on some campuses?
Would the system have to lift its cap on out-of-state students to make up the difference?
What about students who don't do well in high school but still have the potential to blossom later?
Would setting a minimum high school GPA requirement increase pressure to inflate high school grades?
Despite the potential difficulties, it is vitally important to improve UNC graduation rates without relaxing academic standards at the college level. It's expensive to educate students in our university system, and we can't afford to waste space on those who aren't qualified to perform at the college level.
At the same time, more of our young people, not fewer, need higher education. The thing is, they first need a high school education that truly prepares them to succeed at the next level. We have a lot of shoring up to do there. But maybe setting tougher UNC admission standards would motivate students to work harder in high school. If they know it's easy to get into a UNC school, they might be tempted to coast through high school, not realizing how tough it's going to be once they get to college.
What needs to be done besides strengthening our high schools? That's the biggest part of the answer, but beyond that, more students should be directed to community colleges where they can transition more easily to the next level. Others should be granted provisional admission to UNC schools, meaning they would have to pass preliminary courses administered during the summer after their high school graduation. Erskine Bowles has referred to this approach as an academic boot camp.
For too long, we've allowed a disconnect between our high schools and our university system. We have excellent state universities but our high schools send them too many students who lack the skills to make it there. We've got to close that gap, but never by lowering standards at our universities.