Senior Staff Writer

California State University Bakersfield appears to have a low graduation rate. The average for its four-year graduation rate is 15 percent, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

CSUB’s  rate of 15 percent which is below the 17.4 percent average of the CSU system as a whole.  However it’s six-year graduation rate of 41 percent is above the the CSU systems average of 37.4 percent.

In comparison, the University of California system has an average four year graduation rate of 48 percent and a six-year average of 70 percent.

While the percentages of students who graduate within four and six years appear low, every year a large number of students graduate.

“It’s more about volume,” said Mike Uhlenkamp, director of media relations for the California State University system. 95,000 students will graduate during the 2012 to 2013 academic year. This is nearly a quarter of the 437,000 students that are currently enrolled in CSUs.

While the four-year graduation rates for all 23 CSUs is below 20 percent, according to Uhlenkamp the CSU system is more focused on the six-year graduation rate.

Uhlenkamp attributes the low four-year and six-year averages to the type of students who attend a CSU.

“Graduating in four years isn’t important for everyone. For our system the majority of students work. As a result, they re not able to take a full course load every semester or quarter,” he said

However, there are systemwide initiatives that are focused on increasing  graduation rates by 8 percent by 2015. This will place CSUB above the national six year  average  of 48.8 percent for all colleges in the United States according to the National Student Clearinghouse research center.

These initiatives include normalizing the amount of units required to obtain a bachelor’s degree to 120 semester units or 180 quarter units. This will decrease the amount of classes that students must take for more intensive majors, such as engineering, that may have been 10-20 units over the CSUs current goal which means students in the program have to stay for additional semesters.

Another initiative is the Early Start Program. This program allows freshmen who will be entering the CSU system in the fall to take remedial courses over the summer. These courses may be taken online or on campus at the CSU they will be attending, a nearby CSU or at a California Community College.

“In 2007 CSUB began a pilot program, called Early Start, to offer summer classes in english and math for incoming students who weren’t  ready for college level courses,” said Colleen Dillaway, CSUB’s  public affairs director.

“We’ve seen quite a bit of success with that program. In fact, in 2011 the CSU system adopted it and it is now a mandatory program during program,” said Dillaway.  “In 2009, for example, for the students who were enrolled in Early Start during that summer the next year 100 percent of them were still enrolled in classes at CSUB. Where as those students who needed remediation and did not participate in Early Start only 59 percent of those students continued enrollment at CSUB beyond their freshman year,” said Dillaway.

The amount of increased retention remained for those who participated in the program. In 2010 the group of students whp participated in Early Start had a retention rate of 78 percent compared to a rate of 61 percent for students in need of remediation but who did not enroll in the program according to Dillaway.

“We are seeing retention and retention translates to improved student outcome,” said Dillaway.

Also, while CSUB’s graduation rate may appear low, this is also because of the amount of students who transfer to other colleges. According to the CSUB website, of the 676 full-time freshman students who began attending CSUB in 2002 33.9 percent of the students transferred to another college before graduating from CSUB.

Just over 55 percent of students who enrolled in fall 2002 were expected to graduate with a bachelor’s degree within six years.