Un camino largo y difícil

el problema de la baja tasa de graduados de la Ingeniería Eléctrica de la Facultad de Ingeniería y Arquitectura de la Universidad de El Salvador

Abstract

The time and percentage of students who complete a college degree have been of special interest to academics studying student’s failure in higher education. The quantification of both variables is obtained through an indicator called graduation rate, which it is a measure of how many students who began in the same cohort will graduate in the established time. Above all, graduation rate offers a general idea not just of student’s performance but college’s commitment to its youth. Taking as a study case 26 cohorts of electrical engineering students, from Facultad de Ingeniería y Arquitectura at Universidad de El Salvador, who enrolled at San Salvador’s campus, on a 5.5- year program, it was determined that no student who enrolled in the period 1989-2007 graduated in less than 6 years. Cohorts 2008- 2014 showed some improvement, with an average graduation rate of 2%. By extending to 150 percent of ‘normal time’ for completing the program in which they are enrolled a 9-year graduation rate indicator was introduced. It was found cohorts 1989-2007 and 2008-2011 got 3.6% and 11.3% 9-year graduate rate, respectively. It was the 2011 cohort that showed the best results, by 2019 17.1% had graduated. Disaggregation by gender determined that in the case of women the situation is more alarming. Out of the 26 cohorts analyzed, only 2 women graduated within the established period. Obviously the results are discouraging, and this research is not intended to be anything other than an analysis of the serious and largely ignored problem of how to lead more young people to finish their university studies in a reasonable time