THE GRADUATION EFFICIENCY INDEX - VALIDITY AND USE AS AN ACCOUNTABILITY AND RESEARCH MEASURE

Legislatures and coordinating boards are looking for efficiency measur es as greater numbers of students wish access to higher education. We propose the Graduation Efficiency Index (GEI) as an efficiency measure that is more valid and useful than elapsed time from matriculation to degree (time to degree). The index is computed by subtracting the num ber of transfer credits from the minimum credits required for the degr ee, then dividing the remainder by the sum of the enrollment census da y credits in which the given student has enrolled while in college. Re search is reported in which this index is applied to data from 1993-94 University of Washington bachelor-degree recipients. Among the result s, nontransfers were found to graduate with more efficiency than trans fers and B.A.-degree recipients with more efficiency that B.S. recipie nts. The GEI correlated only modestly with time to degree and part-tim e vs. full-time enrollment status, and correlations with admissions da ta were quite small.