Unicorns only exist if you count them.

Unicorns exist

I’ve spent my entire life believing that unicorns only exist in fair tales and in Polly Pockets.  But they exist if you start counting them.  BTW, they look pretty happy, too.

The reason I focus on unicorns is that everyone believes them to be a myth.  But as I spend time researching the data behind education, an issue that is important to me, Atlanta and the country, I find the education data more unrealistic than unicorns.  We talk about education as the savior.  It is – if you graduate.

We need to change the focus to measuring outcomes, not enrollment. Anything less than graduation is unacceptable.

College graduation rates are horrendous – 2-year or 4-year institutions.  It doesn’t make a difference which state or institution you choose, this isn’t a Georgia-only problem, they are all bad.  The conversation needs to change to outcome: graduation and a living wage.

To start with, we need real numbers, not best-case scenarios.  Stop quoting enrollment and about the graduates and start talking about dropouts.  The majority of students do not graduate on time and a huge percentage never get a degree.  Some college is not enough.  No credential = no value.

We need to count all students: full-time and part-time and stop extending the graduation rate out to 200% of the time.  It shouldn’t take 4 years to get a 2-year degree or 8-years to get a 4-year degree, so why count it that way?  Oh – beacause it makes us feel better.  As complete College America documents Time is the Enemy of graduation.

There are relatively simple systemic fixes that would improve student success (i.e. code word: graduation)

IMAGINE THIS: If any student enrolls in a school, they should get what they paid for – a certificate or degree.  Guaranteed.  The professors who pride themselves on failing students should be fired.  The schools that fail the students should refund the money. The students who game the student loan system should be prosecuted for fraud.

We need to be angry and change the focus to Outcome instead of Enrollment and Unicorns (students that actually graduate) will abound.