ABSTRACT

Statistically, colleges enrolling large proportions of underprepared students have lower graduation rates than colleges enrolling fewer underpre-pared students. Admitting students should not be an assurance that they graduate. Nevertheless, in trying to maximize "access," the system of higher education arouses expectations in admitted students that they graduate. With so many colleges competing for student enrollments, high school graduates and their counselors are courted. The addition of a Nobel-prize winner to a faculty helps the attractiveness of a college to freshmen applicants even if his or her responsibilities are laboratory research and teaching graduate students. The students and their parents have to believe that they are enrolling in an educational institution, not merely a recreation center. Colleges award merit scholarships for excellent students, and they establish honors colleges for good students with separate courses and even separate dormitories.