Despite COVID and equity gaps, CSU graduation rates rose

A record 132,167 students earned degrees from California State University during the 2020-21 academic year — including nearly 113,000 bachelor of arts degrees — but persistent gaps widened among historically underrepresented students, officials said Friday.

Graduation rates for first-time and transfer students have continued to rise since 2015, when the university system launched its important graduation initiative to improve declining rates.

However, the difference in the equity gap for Pell Grant recipient students with extraordinary financial needs and non-Pell Grant recipients grew slightly in the past year and is now at 10.2%, up from 9.2%, said the Executive Vice President of Academic and student affairs Sylvia Alva. The gap for color students – blacks, Indians and Latinos – also grew and now stands at 12.4%, up from 10.5%.

“It would be easy to sit back and attribute inequalities to the pandemic, to the economic insecurity, the racial and social injustice throughout the country – all the turbulence of the last year. It would be simple, but it would be incomplete – incomplete, because that explanation robs us of responsibility, “said Alva.

Cal Chancellor Joseph Castro said a multi-layered strategy would be the key to “removing the barriers that stand in the way of historically marginalized students.”

The strategy will include a re-enrollment campaign to bring disadvantaged students back to campuses from the spring of 2022 and the implementation of “digital degree planners”, a virtual roadmap to help students understand what courses are needed to complete and correct mistakes if a dropped class could put them behind schedule.

Data show that students of color and first-generation students are more likely to receive Ds, Fs, or withdrawals in their first-year courses. For this reason, we strive to dramatically improve the results of the significantly larger road courses with the highest enrollments of subordinate students, ”Castro said.

Eight campuses account for 57% of students in color who have left the Cal State system since the fall of 2019.

The graduation rate for first-time students in Cal State who graduate in four years is currently 33%; for first-time students graduating in six years, it is 63%. The goal is to increase these rates to 40% and 70% respectively by 2025.

The fact that the exam rate increased reflects the high number of students who were on their way before the pandemic hit, Asst. That’s what Vice Chancellor Jeff Gold said. What happens to this rate in the next two to three years is a major issue and will be linked to trends in student admission during the pandemic.

Cal State has not yet released enrollment data for the fall of 2021. Last fall, the university system experienced a record, but the number of first-year students dropped significantly.

The hope is that the path of rising graduation rates will continue, Gold said. But the more urgent need is to close gaps in stocks.

“I think it’s the hardest and most difficult challenge in our careers and for some of us, the calling of our lives,” he said.

Cal State recently announced that it will launch a technology hub to recruit future Latino students to technology fields and help close the equity gaps.