By Michael D. Clark
The Cincinnati Enquirer

Katherine Zeitler is a student at Miami University in Oxford, where the graduation rate is above the national average. "It helps that Miami is a smaller school in a small town," she says. "That allows you to focus." The Cincinnati Enquirer/GLENN HARTONG

OXFORD - Miami University junior Katherine Zeitler reflects on the usual confusion of being a newcomer here, and gratefully recalls what the school did to help her and other freshmen flourish.

Miami, unlike many four-year public universities, provides residence hall academic advisers for freshmen who live in the same building. They answer questions, provide guidance and generally smooth a freshman's transition into college life.

And it's one of the reasons that Miami University has been singled out for praise in a national study released Wednesday of America's 1,400 four-year public universities and colleges that shows graduation rates vary dramatically among schools.

The report by the Education Trust, a Washington, D.C.-based, advocacy group for higher education, said Miami's 81 percent graduation rate - 18 percentage points above the national average - reflects the school's commitment to not only wooing students, but also making sure they succeed once there.

WHY SIX YEARS?

Education experts in recent years have said four-year public universities are four-year in name only, and a more accurate and fair way to study graduation rates is to use a six-year window, tracking freshman students who attend only one school. More universities and colleges are offering co-op work programs, such as the University of Cincinnati, that require a minimum of five years of instruction before earning a bachelor's degree. The Education Trust group said only 37 percent of students obtain their degrees in four years. Experts cite student transfers to other schools, temporarily dropping to part-time class load or periodically leaving school to work to cover the cost of college, and the expansion of college co-op programs as rationales for examining the progress of students in six-year increments.

"My freshman year was difficult, but ... the residence halls had programs to get students involved," said the 20-year-old Zeitler, who will enter her senior year in the fall. "And it helps that Miami is a smaller school in a small town and that allows you to focus."

Education Trust officials used U.S. Department of Education data and combined it with the most recent graduation-rate survey tracking of only first-time, full-time students who began college in fall 1996 at public, four-year institutions with a goal of earning an undergraduate bachelor's degree by 2002. The national survey noted that just 63 percent of students received their degrees within that six-year period - the standard time window for college studies.

Moreover, minorities and low-income students fared considerably worse, with 46 percent of African-American students, 47 percent of Latino and 54 percent of low-income students graduating within six years.

Elsewhere in Greater Cincinnati, Northern Kentucky University reported a 33.3 percent graduation rate within six years, the lowest in Kentucky, for 2003. (The highest percentage in the state belonged to the University of Kentucky, at 61.1 percent.)

NKU president James Votruba said he is "scratching his head" over his school's disappointing numbers, which represented a decline of more than 4 percentage points from the previous year.

"It surprised me, and it troubled me," Votruba said. "We believe those numbers need to be much higher, and we intend to make investments to assure they are higher."

Kati Haycock, director of the Education Trust, said in a statement that the national numbers "make clear the need for a renewed and comprehensive focus on higher education outcomes. Colleges and universities must take more seriously their obligation to these students and change their practices to improve success for all students."

According to the group's studies, which mirror a similar recent study by the Ohio Board of Regents, the University of Cincinnati, the largest university in Southwest Ohio and second-largest in the state, reported a 49 percent graduation rate for the same six-year period.

But the group's officials warn that comparisons between schools based solely on graduation rates is problematic and misleading because they do not take into account a four-year-university's student selection process, the school's mission, and specialized undergraduate programs that automatically require some students to study for more than four years.

UC spokesman Greg Hand said an example is the university's nationally acclaimed co-op program, which is one of the largest in the nation and involves more than 25 percent of the school's 18,000 undergraduates in work/school programs that "at a minimum require attending for five years."

"It's one of the biggest factors affecting our graduation rate," Hand said.

He said that part of UC's mission as an institution of higher learning is to make college accessible for many Greater Cincinnati students, and schools such as Miami have higher minimum academic entrance requirements.

Moreover, he cited UC's installation of more academic, tutoring and program changes designed to meet the needs of incoming students - including below college-level freshmen - "and getting them up to speed as fast as possible so they can graduate quicker."

Miami University spokeswoman Holly Wissing said that "you cannot discount the high quality of students that we get" as part of the school's high rating, but added that "at Miami, freshmen receive personal attention and guidance, whether it be a from a full professor teaching an entry-level course or an academic adviser living within their residence hall."

E-mail mclark@enquirer.com