Study: Religious colleges have highest grad rates

WASHINGTON — Religiously affiliated universities rank the highest nationwide in graduating their students, while hundreds of public and private universities fall far below the devastatingly low average of graduated students, according to a recent report based on data from the U.S. Department of Education. From Catholic to Jewish and Baptist to Methodist, religious colleges and universities topped the charts in the American Enterprise Institute’s survey, which found an average of just 53 percent of entering students at four-year colleges graduate within six years.

Many institutions fared far worse, with graduation rates below 20 and 30 percent for students who entered in the fall of 2001. Religiously affiliated universities, however, rarely appeared in the rock-bottom rankings and held most of the top 10 slots across six categories of admissions selectivity.

Brian Williams, the vice president of enrollment at John Carroll University in Cleveland, said religiously affiliated universities produce more graduates because their “mission statement attracts a certain type of student, as well as a certain type of employee.”