I have to mention one more point about Leonhardt’s article. He is so eager to make it seem that low graduation rates are the fault of institutions, rather than students who either can’t or won’t do the work necessary to graduate, that he claims schools actually benefit from having students drop out. Here’s what he wrote: “Beause large lecture classes are cheaper for a college than seminars, freshmen are cheaper than upperclassmen. So a college that allows many of its underclassmen to drop out may be helping its bottom line.”

That’s really winging it.

A college’s faculty cost is pretty much fixed, except for adjunct faculty, who mostly teach those large lecture classes. It saves almost nothing in variable expenses when students drop out, but loses whatever marginal revenue those students would bring in. That is why at most colleges (although probably not the Ivy League ones with which Leonhardt is familiar), student retention is even more important than “diversity.” They’re frantic to avoid losing students and will even pressure faculty members into making courses easier and inflating grades so as to minimize the number of students who drop out or transfer. I’m speaking from personal experience here.