Library Blog Buzz

I was browsing through my list of blogs and found an interesting post from Steven Bell at the The Kept-Up Academic Librarian blog which paints a grim picture of graduation rate among college and university students.

Thirty percent of college and university students drop out after their first year. Half never graduate, and college completion rates in the United States have been stalled for more than three decades.
... Four-year schools have their own set of academic retention problems, but the dropout problem is most acute in the nation's community colleges.

For any community college or university is somewhat normall to have 5% or 8% drop out rate, but when this affects half of the students enrolled, educators and college presidents have a lot to work on. Libraries also need to participate actively in the process and provide college students with the necessary study materials, reference databases and free or low cost classes to help them with their student work.