Drop in persistence: evidence or explanations in Calif. CC?

[bcrowell]

I've been teaching physics at a community college in California since 1996. Starting around 2010, I seem to have noticed a change in the behavior of my students, which is that much larger numbers of them seem to be dropping the course because although they're passing, they want a higher grade than what they're getting. They get a W on their transcript, but it doesn't affect their GPA. They can then go back and retake the course. This behavior has always existed, and there have always been incentives to do it, but it seems to have gotten more extreme. E.g., for the first time I'm getting students who have an A but drop because their A is costing them too much effort, or they're afraid they'll get a B on the final and drop to a B for the semester.

Has anyone seen any evidence that this is really happening, or does my experience not generalize? If it is happening, why would it be happening?

I have come up with one theory, but I don't have any data to test it. After the economic crash of 2008, the California public higher education system had its funding cut, and the pipeline of students started to get clogged. Students couldn't get the classes they needed in order to graduate in any reasonable amount of time. In an attempt to deal with this, the legislature mandated creation of new community college degrees called AST degrees in an attempt to increase throughput. Getting an AST is supposed to qualify you for admission to a CSU campus, which is where the vast majority of our students transfer. When the economy got better, the state started raising funding again for the CC and UC systems, they didn't do it for CSU. The overburdened CSUs have apparently looked at the situation and responded by increasing their admissions standards for transfer students in popular majors. E.g., CSUF's kinesiology department now requires either a 3.8 GPA (!) or a 3.0 and an AST. This massively increases pressure on students to get high grades, and it also may have changed the application process to focus very narrowly on these two factors (GPA and AST) to the exclusion of others, such as whether the student has a transcript littered with Ws. Therefore there may be a new and overwhelming perverse incentive for students to use the W as a GPA-enhancement tool. This is sort of like getting five abortions every year as a method of birth control.

Does this theory make any sense? I don't know that much about CSU transfer admissions, so I may be totally wrong here. If the effect exists in other states, then clearly this specific scenario involving California legislation can't be the explanation.

 

[Andy Resnick]

I've been teaching physics at a community college in California since 1996. Starting around 2010, I seem to have noticed a change in the behavior of my students, which is that much larger numbers of them seem to be dropping the course because although they're passing, they want a higher grade than what they're getting. They get a W on their transcript, but it doesn't affect their GPA. They can then go back and retake the course. This behavior has always existed, and there have always been incentives to do it, but it seems to have gotten more extreme. E.g., for the first time I'm getting students who have an A but drop because their A is costing them too much effort, or they're afraid they'll get a B on the final and drop to a B for the semester.

Has anyone seen any evidence that this is really happening, or does my experience not generalize? If it is happening, why would it be happening?

<snip>

I haven't seen this to the degree that you have, but this past year I have noticed a similar behavior by undergrads. I agree that one explanation is the need to have an unreasonably high GPA in order to move on to the next stage of schooling, I mentioned in a different thread that our institution (based on pressures from the state government) has recently changed the rules about 'W', in that students with excessive withdraws risk academic suspension and even expulsion. So, we will see if that alters student behavior.

 

[martane]

It's definitely possible that this behavior is becoming more prevalent, and your theory about the increased pressure to maintain high GPAs in order to transfer to CSU makes a lot of sense. I can see how students would feel the need to drop a course in order to protect their GPA, especially if it's a requirement for admission to their desired university.

I'm not sure if this is happening in other states, but I know that in my state, there has been a similar push to increase the number of degrees and certifications available at community colleges in order to make them more appealing to employers. This could also be contributing to the pressure on students to maintain high GPAs.

It's unfortunate that this behavior is becoming more common, as it takes away from the value of a college education. Instead of focusing on learning and gaining knowledge, students are now more concerned with their grades and how it will affect their future opportunities. It's important for educators to continue to emphasize the importance of learning and personal growth, rather than just grades and GPA.

Overall, your theory makes a lot of sense and could definitely be a contributing factor to this trend. It would be interesting to see if there is any data or research on this topic in other states or countries.