The article "Community Colleges and Graduation Rates," published in Inside Higher Ed, highlighted conclusions from CCRC's study on the validity of the “Student Right to Know” graduation rates.

According to Scott Jaschik:

A new study on community college graduation rates has a somewhat unusual conclusion: Federal measures of the graduation rates are as bad as critics claim, but when those measures are corrected, colleges’ results compared to other institutions don’t change very much.

The issue of graduation rates is one that is increasingly important in higher education, as politicians and others seek more ways to gauge colleges’ performance and hold them accountable.But as the study notes, community colleges have complained for years that the rates that the federal government uses aren’t appropriate for their institutions and lead to simplistic and unfair criticisms. The study was done by scholars at the Community College Research Center of Teachers College, Columbia University…

--Read the full-length Inside Higher Ed article at http://insidehighered.com/news/2007/03/22/ccdata