Freshman Retention Rates

There's an interesting story in today's print issue of The Red & Black about UGA freshman retention rates. UGA's frosh retention rate inched higher, to 95.2 percent in the latest data. That's great news. To put this in context, it was 94.2 percent last year. But also to put it in context, it's been in the 94 percent neighborhood since, best I can tell looking back, 2005.

Here's a line from the story that gives this a hook.

The national average retention rate is 80 percent, while the six-year graduation national rate is 59 percent.

OK, but here's the deal when dealing with numbers like this. That 80 percent, it has a ceiling effect and includes lots of struggling schools with struggling students, so it's not all that impressive to compare UGA's retention rate with a national average. Instead, let's look at UGA's peers. Here we do damn well too, and it took me all of five seconds to find these data. The link should take you to page 2, which includes UGA. If you look, UF is just above us, as is Georgia Tech. Sigh, they always seem to be. Anyway, we're about where you'd expect with our peers and better than most, so good.

OK, but how about the reason why for the 1 percentage point increase? UGA's provost credits better advising and smaller classes, and there's no way to challenge that. I suspect there's no way to support that with the data either, but as it makes sense let's just let it slide.

The moral? Beware comparisons. Yes, UGA beats the national average in just about everything (except, maybe, football this year). But that's not saying a helluva lot. A better comparison is with a university's peer and aspirational institutions.


Update

A part of the story I finally got around to checking. Yes, UGA has a record-breaking 6-year graduation rate for freshmen of 85.6 percent, but here's the part UGA doesn't mention to the R&B: the 4-year and 5-year freshman graduation rates went down compared to the previous cohort. Not by a lot, but down, a few fractions of a percentage point in both cases. Thanks to the Hope Scholarship, many of our students are on the 5-year and 6-year plan.

Beware the Polling Subgroups

I was ironing clothes this morning, half listening to Morning Joe on MSNBC (I jump around to the various cable channels, comparing journalistic malpractice, and usually Fox & Friends wins to a long shot).

They mentioned a Florida Decides poll, noting Donald Trump was ahead in that state -- even with Republican Hispanics.

Me being me I thought, "Wow, did they survey enough of those to really compare?" It's hard to say, but probably no. Here's the crosstabs we'll be looking at. Take your time, peruse them, because it'll help, then go down to the crosstabs of party identification and candidate preference. They're after the story.

Trump leads overall in Florida. OK. Got that. He leads among men and women. OK. And even among those ages 18-34. 

About that age thing. This is mostly a landline robo-poll. Some surveys were sent to smart phones not as calls, but actual surveys you have to fill out. Here's the methodological stuff:

This research was conducted using blended sample, mixed mode: respondents reachable on their home telephone (69% of registered voters) were interviewed on their home telephone in the recorded voice of a professional announcer. Respondents not reachable on a home telephone (31% of registered voters) were shown a questionnaire on their smartphone, tablet or other electronic device.

Finally, Trump leads among Cuban Hispanics by two percentage points over Carson and Rubio, and by a much wider margin among non-Cuban Hispanics (41 percent, to 2nd place Carson's 15 percent). Think about that. Total GOP respondents was 922. What they don't tell you is how many were Hispanic. Or black. Or white. We don't get the raw numbers, but it's very likely the number of Hispanics in this sample was relatively small, with balloons the margin of error to the point where it's hard to say if Trump, despite what MSNBC said, is actually winning among Florida Hispanics.

In other words, beware when pollsters, or journalists, provide differences among subgroups. The margin of error for an entire sample does not apply to subgroups. Ever.

UGA Overreach?

Can UGA tell students what they can wear off campus?

Obvious answer -- no.

But there's this story today, an interesting one by OnlineAthens, in which an email was sent to sorority members at UGA from the administration warning them about the so-called Frat Beach, an infamous booze-filled beach gathering before the Georgia-Florida game. The email was from Panhellenic, which is basically the administration of Greek Life. Lemme quote a few of the most tasty bits of the email:

3) NO LETTERS, SYMBOLS, #’S, OR ANYTHING THAT REPRESENTS YOUR SORORITY. Your sorority will be held accountable for it’s members and will be subject to Panhellenic Standards.

First, Panhellenic, learn the difference between its and it's. Also, enough with the all-caps. It's amateurish. And second, I'm fairly certain it's a violation of the First Amendment for you to enforce a dress code off campus. They're at a beach, not a university function. If an individual sorority wants to say no letters, that's one thing and perfectly acceptable, but you can't enforce it.

And there's more

4) Hold yourself and your friends accountable. (Buddy System). Never let someone roam around alone and go with someone everywhere - even to the bathroom. “Two is better than one” ;) Don’t forgot to help people in need - we are a community; we should have EVERYONE’S BACKS!

Dear Panhellenic: You're allowed the use of three exclamation points in your entire career. You just used one of them. Plus the call-caps thing. Just stop. And my favorite reminders to UGA sorority ladies.

-- DON'T URINATE IN PUBLIC

And finally, there's this gem that manages to use, yet again, an exclamation point while also being nauseatingly nauseating.

6) “What happens in Vegas, stays in Vegas” does not apply in St. Simons or Jacksonville. You are always representing Panhellenic, your sorority, and more importantly, UGA!

But other than mocking an email, the real issue to me is whether or not Panhellenic can order what can and cannot be worn at a beach in south Georgia before a football game. I get a chapter saying its members should not wear the letters, and I might even buy into a Panhellenic vote on such a thing by representatives of chapters or houses, but I don't buy you can get away with telling via an email what they can and cannot wear -- unless it's a UGA function. And maybe not even then.

Of course I could be wrong, but I find this fascinating while also disturbing, so remember this sorority gals -- all urination must be in private.

Apparently you need to be reminded of this.

UGA State of Origiin

Fresh data, fresh analyses. I'm looking here at changes in what state undergrads at UGA were from, comparing Fall 2000 to Fall 2015.

Why? Because I like to, dammit.

First blush table below, looking at states other than Georgia and how they ranked in 2000 and 2015. Keep in mind these are only undergrads, only fall semesters. You'll see some big changes, which I'll discuss below the table.

Rank	Fall 2000	Fall 2015
1	South Carolina	North Carolina
2	Tennessee	Texas
3	Florida	Florida
4	North Carolina	Virginia
5	Alabama	Maryland
6	Louisiana	Tennessee
7	Virginia	South Carolina
8	Texas	New Jersey
9	New York	New York
10	Pennsylvania	California

My main takeaways from this table?

• Neighboring states like S.C. and Tennessee dropped. South Carolina plummeted from 1st back in Fall 2000 to 7th by Fall 2015. I'll get to why below, or at least my hypothesis as to why. 
• North Carolina went from 4th to 1st. It's kinda close geographically, but more on perhaps why below.
• Texas zoomed from 8th to 2nd, and California climbed from 18th in 2000 to 10th. New Jersey climbed as well, from 13th to 9th. Others moved up, like Virginia. Again, my hypothesis below.
• A few dropped out. Louisiana was 6th in 2000, down to 12th by 2015.

OK, but why? I blame UGA's rising academic stature, which attracts more competitive students from states other than the neighboring ones. But -- and this is also important -- states like Texas and North Carolina have their own highly competitive schools, so UGA may be benefiting from spillover. That leaves a lot of students from South Carolina and Tennessee unable to compete academically from kids from these other states. That's my hypothesis, but testing it is another matter.

A few more numbers, if you're so inclined.

• As you might expect, South Carolina had the biggest drop in students, 158 fewer in 2015 than in 2000 at UGA.
• Next in line was Alabama (106 fewer), then Louisiana (87), Tennessee (73) and Kentucky (21).
• Texas had the biggest increase (137), followed by Maryland (121), North Carolina (98), New Jersey (67), and Virginia (50). 
• If you prefer percentage change from 2000 to 2015, the biggest loser among the states is Alabama (-63.1 percent) and South Carolina (-55.4 percent). This excludes really small states where one or two people can make a huge percentage difference. 
• The biggest percentage winners were Maryland (252.1 percent, wow), California (162.1 percent), and New Jersey (119.1 percent).

Biggest Winners & Losers

I wrote yesterday about the top 10 ranked counties in sending undergrads to UGA from Fall 2000 and Fall 2015. Read it first. Brilliant stuff. OK, not brilliant, but helpful for getting into what comes next. As I mentioned in the previous post, you can see certain counties took off (Forsyth, for example) over that 15-year span. Others ranked in 2000 disappeared in 2015 (Bibb, for example).  Now let's look at percentage change over time.

First, a caveat. I warn my students about small numbers and percent change. If a county sent only 2 students to UGA in 2000 but 4 in 2015, that's a 100 percent increase, but small numbers like this make percentage change kinda meaningless. So below I'm talking about percentage change of counties that send a substantive number of students to UGA.

Winners

• I mentioned Forsyth County before, with a 920-student change from Fall 2000 to Fall 2015, that's a 460 percent increase. Stunning.
• Paulding County, a 149-student increase, for 199 percent increase.
• Cherokee, up 377 students, for a 139 percent increase.
• Coweta, up 189 students, a 135 percent increase.
• And finally Henry, up 188 students, a 96 percent increase.

What do these above have in common? They're all Atlanta burbs/exurbs.

Losers

• Elbert County sent 45 fewer students to UGA in 2015 as compared to 2000, for a 64 percent decrease.
• Clayton County sent 155 fewer students, a 50 percent drop.
• Madison County sent 85 fewer students, a 49 percent drop.
• Clayton County sent 155 fewer students, a 50 percent drop.
• Finally, Rockdale County sent 133 fewer students, a 43 percent drop.

Interestingly, Fulton County, always a big UGA county, had a 62 percent increase. Other metro Atlanta counties also saw increases, such as Gwinnett (23 percent). Cobb decreased slightly, 4 percent.

Below, a first stab at a map. Click to move it around, just like a normal Google map. Also click on individual counties for stats. The darker counties are those with higher growth.

Where UGA Students Come From

Fresh data for Fall 2015 is out, so it's time for my annual set of posts about where UGA students (where I teach) come from. Today we'll keep it simple ant look at the Top 10 from Fall 2000 and Fall 2015. Table below, then my comments follow.

Rank	In 2000	In 2015
1	Gwinnett	Gwinnett
2	Cobb	Fulton
3	Fulton	Cobb
4	DeKalb	DeKalb
5	Clarke	Forsyth
6	Fayette	Clarke
7	Chatham	Cherokee
8	Columbia	Fayette
9	Oconee	Oconee
10	Bibb	Columbia

So as you can see, the usual suspects show up in the top four slots (Gwinnett, Fulton, Cobb, and DeKalb). Some movement, but basically what you'd expect to see, that UGA is really the University of Atlanta.

Starting at #5, though, it gets interesting. Clarke dropped a spot, but look at 2015 and Forsyth County. It was ranked #19 in 2000, but shot to #5 in 2015. In raw numbers, this translates into 200 total undergraduates in 2000 but, get this, 1,120 in 2015. That's a fivefold increase. That's a 460 percent increase. The same is seen for Cherokee County (#7 in 2015, up from #16 in 2000). Bibb drops out by 2015, from 10th in the earlier year to 18th in Fall 2015.

I'll crank the data more, but I can tell you from running these analyses over the years a few explanatory factors stand out. First, population growth. Second, poverty. Fast-growing burbs and exurbs drive the growth.

When I have more time I'll map this for you and break it down by gender and race.

Oh, one last item. I've played with these data for years, and rarely does Echols County have a single undergraduate at UGA. It does this Fall.

UGA Survey

UGA has this survey, called Count Me In, that's running. Yes, it's 20 minutes of your life you'll never get back. Yes, it's full of all kinds of questions about whether you've been mistreated, or seen other people mistreated, based on pretty much every possible reason you can think of. For example, are you an Ableist? That's "discrimination or prejudice against people with disabilities."

I am not making this up.  If a student every uses that term in a news story, except in a quote, I'll fail that student. Stupid, ugly word. And yes, I heard a faculty member use it in University Council meeting once. Sheesh. I swear to God I think it was when we were asked for a show of hands for a vote. "That's ableist," she said. No, really. She said that. In public.

I filled the survey out as a faculty member and, a few moments later, tried again. Yup, I could do it again. And maybe again and again, rinse and repeat, as often as I liked.

Let me clear as a guy who teaches graduate level public opinion -- that's a problem. They've not set up the survey in such a way as to keep a band of radical ableists (or radical disabilists?) from skewing the results. It's not hard to set it up in such a way that at least you'd have to use a different device to complete multiple surveys.

So you radical ableists out there, now's your chance. Able away.