Washington Monthly - September/October 2014 - 40

HELD ACCOUNTABLE
The kind of school that should fear
Obama's college rankings.
By Matt Connolly and Phillip Longman

A

s far as you can tell by just walking around its campus, Ferrum is a typical small, private, residential liberal arts college. Founded by Methodists in 1913, it sits
on 700 bucolic acres bordering a pretty lake in the foothills of
the Blue Ridge Mountains in southwest Virginia. Many of its
students will tell you that they are at least satisfied with the
campus life Ferrum offers, which includes small class sizes,
majors in thirty-three different fields, some sixty clubs, and
a vibrant sports culture anchored by its Division III football
team, the Panthers.
Yet by many important measures, Ferrum ranks among
the worst colleges in America. Its students borrow more, default on their loans more, and graduate less than do students
at almost all other comparable institutions. Ferrum proves
that you can't judge schools just by appearances, and that
even low-quality schools have fans.
A first cautionary statistic about Ferrum is the large
number of students who leave. Barely half of its freshmen remain for more than a year. Partly this reflects the
school's liberal admissions policy. It accepts more than 90
percent of all applicants, and the entering class has a high
school grade point average of just 2.75, meaning that many
students arrive on campus poorly prepared. About a third
of the student body is African American, and 4 percent
is Hispanic.
Many are also the first in their families to go to college. "A lot of them go back home," says Ferrum spokeswoman Kym Davis. "They don't think to go back to college." Yet there are other private nonprofit liberal arts
colleges, such as Albertus Magnus College in New Haven
or Nyack College in New York, that have similar student
demographics and do a better job holding down dropout
rates and producing graduates. So do many community
colleges that cost far less money.
Another factor behind Ferrum's high dropout rate is
its football program. Out of an entering class of about 560,
roughly 100 come to Ferrum thinking that they will play for
the Panthers. But the team only has 100 players, including
upperclassmen. School officials say that all students know
they'll have to compete for a slot on the team. But, adds Kim
Blair, vice president for institutional advancement, "football
for many Division III schools is an enrollment strategy," and
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September/October 2014

Ferrum's program isn't any different from those of the other
schools in its conference.
Quinten Carter, who chose Ferrum after hitting it off
with the college's football coaches, adds another perspective. "They make you feel like you're going to start ASAP."
Quinten made the cut, went on to graduate from Ferrum,
and feels generally good about his experience, but he says
many students come to Ferrum solely because they think
they'll have a chance to play on the Panthers, and wind
up disillusioned.
Ferrum's dropout rate also reflects the fact that many
students arrive here intending to transfer out as soon as
they can get into a better school. "I knew all along I was gonna leave," says Michelle Farris, a Virginia Tech senior who
transferred from Ferrum after her freshman year. "I've always wanted to go to Virginia Tech. I wasn't able to get in
right away, so I had to go somewhere for the first year."
Ferrum's administrators point to students like Farris as
another explanation for its low graduation rates, while also
citing the fact that Ferrum remained a junior college until
1976 and continued awarding associate's degrees until 1991.
"We have students who are late bloomers," says Douglas
Clark, vice president of enrollment services. Adds spokeswoman Davis, "There is still a strong public awareness of Ferrum College as a good place to start. Therefore, there are students who still come to Ferrum to develop academically and
then transfer to another college. We consider such students
as success stories but, unfortunately, higher education statistics do not reflect the reality of that success."
But this explanation goes only so far. Nationally,
there is a lack of data that can sharply distinguish between
schools that are dropout factories and those that largely
serve as feeder schools to more elite institutions. But in
Virginia, making that distinction is far easier. That's because it is one of a handful of states that keep track of
whether college students who leave one in-state institution
ever wind up graduating from another. And it also tracks
what their earnings are if they go on to work in the state
after graduating. What this information reveals about Ferrum is not pretty.
For example, only 22.8 percent of seventeen- to nineteenyear-olds who started their college careers at Ferrum in
Washington Monthly - September/October 2014

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