During the accreditation renewal meetings at the third university where I was on the faculty, a big discussion ensued about measuring "student success". The administrator types and a large number of the faculty wanted to use percentage of students who graduated as the measure. I (and a number of other faculty members) tried to convince our colleagues that success may include (1) the realization that college is now the solution for them, (2) a different college may better meet their needs, (3) they may not be ready for college *right now* and several other outcomes.
As a society, we have become obsessed with having people complete college, even when it is the totally wrong answer for some. We need to stop insisting that people go to college and then stigmatizing them when they determine it is the wrong place for them to be.
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