The Sunday plenary session at this year’s Chicago Forum featured Dr. William G. Bowen, president emeritus of the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation and Princeton University. Dr. Bowen shared his insights from his book Crossing the Finish Line: Completing College at America’s Public Universities. I readily admit that I am biased in writing this piece - I compiled a large portion of the data for Dr. Bowen’s book while working for the University System of Maryland (USM). I “drank the Kool-Aid” and am a firm believer in need for individual university leadership, combined with state and federal public policies, to address the completion rate disparities between different student groups. The depth and richness of the dataset from which the authors pull leave little room to argue against the conclusions.

Most higher education institutions are faced with tracking the first-time, full-time degree-seeking GRS cohort. While we have done this for over 15 years, inconsistent progress has been made in moving institutional graduation rates. Crossing the Finish Line places the lack of progress in a national context by arguing that there are five principle challenges that face higher education in the United States. “First – educational attainment levels are both too low and stagnant. Second, the US education system harbors disparities in outcomes especially measured by gradations rates that are systematically related to race/ethnicity, and gender, as well as socioeconomic status. Third, the only way to substantially improve educational attainment is by improving graduation rates for the rapidly growing Hispanic population, for underrepresented minority students in general, and for students from low SES backgrounds. Fourth, time-to-degree matters as well as ultimate graduation rates.“ Finally, public universities have to be change agents in addressing these challenges.

Do not be misled by the focus on national level issues. Crossing the Finish Line provides the IR profession with many avenues for campus level research. The value of standardized tests as a predictor for long-term graduation rates was explored. It was found that the long term predictive power of high school grades, and a balanced approach (high school grades, standardized tests and achievement tests) in the admissions process were better predictors of graduation rates than reliance on standardized tests primarily. Combine this with investigating disparities based upon race/ethnicity, gender and SES and the gaps become more compelling. Examining withdraw patterns can lead to an extension of first-year experience programs into the second and even third year. Are students living on campus, or campus-sponsored housing, graduating at a faster rate than commuters? Do transfer students have a similar time to degree than native students? Crossing the Finish Line provides the IR professional with a wealth of data for evaluating internal analyses against 21 public flagship universities, and four statewide public systems. The ability to state that our internal findings align with this large scale study provides university leaders with a comfort level that is perhaps not found solely by using internal data alone.