Is it time to shutter University of Houston-Downtown? (Sugar Land, Victoria: 2015, transfer to)

[979Texan]

One of the worst public university graduation rates in the country.

10 Public Universities with the Worst Graduation Rates | The Fiscal Times

UHD graduates only 14% of its students. Man, what an embarrassment.

I think UHD (and the other institutions in Clear Lake and Victoria) are doing a major disservice to Texans. UH-D, UH-CL and UH-V target folks who probably should not be seeking a degree from a four-year university. Most of the degrees from the UH-X schools are not worth the money they are printed on with the exception here and there, like nursing.

[geolvl]

Yikes, that's really terrible. Thanks for sharing.

[ipuck]

In fairness, lot of people use UHD as starting school and transfer to UH later.

It is also very convenient for the downtown workers to take a couple classes after work.

[DanielWayne]

Are those 4 year graduation rates for UHD? It's possible those numbers are taken from very large non-traditional student populations. Meaning people who can only attend part time.

UHCL is easy admissions, but they have quite a few programs that were created in response from the NASA community.

[jerbear30]

UHD serves an under-served population. Their students tend to be low-income, first generation minorities. Demographically, they already have three strikes against them. To say that they "probably shouldn't" be in a four year school is to say that their lives "should" be determined by their social status. The 14% that UHD does graduate is a much harder fought 14% than whatever numbers Rice and U of H are putting up these days. I agree that college is not for everybody, and that there are many people in college today that shouldn't be. The problem is that our education system tends to disregard intelligence in the underclass while inflating the intelligence of the middle class and wealthy. Thus, the "not for everybody" line ends up being more of a class divider than an actual measure of intelligence. You can't argue for closing down a school like UHD and simultaneously say you're for economic opportunity.

None of this is to say that UHD shouldn't have programs in place to up their numbers. There is no doubt that it should be doing better than it is, but efforts should be holistic, starting with the school itself. If "incentives" come from the state, they tend ultimately to encourage poor educational practices.

[Texas Ag 93]

Originally Posted by ipuck

In fairness, lot of people use UHD as starting school and transfer to UH later.

It is also very convenient for the downtown workers to take a couple classes after work.

Agree. Additionally, there are a lot of people who are already college graduates and use it for pre reqs prior to attending professional schools (medicine, law) or graduate programs. I think it serves an important purpose.

[hbcu]

it was built to stifle TSU's enrollment as they were competing for the same student as TSU's enrollment grew rapidly before UHD became the alternative for alot of students

UH was not crazy as they created Clear Lake to cater to that area and then went on a craze with Victoria and Sugar Land before being stopped in the Northwest

Have you been to Victoria? There is no other option

[Oildog]

UHD tends to attract working students who are unlikely to be on a 4 year plan. I know many hospitality industry folks going there, its not just minorities.

[texas7]

UHCL graduates a lot of students and has a lot of great programs. I work for one of the major O&G companies and I see some of their graduates here - some in IT, public affairs or accounting. So depending on the degree choice, it's a good school. They did a great thing putting it out there and its a fairly nice campus. UHD I don't know much about than it has a lower income demographic of students attending. It attracts some who don't care to go to lone star college which I think is a train wreck of a community college. San jacibto college seems much better and offers significant 2 year programs as well as certification programs.

[Meyerland]

UH V has a pretty good program. Most start there and then transfer to another school or go part time. They offer more flexible programs than other universities.