About

Timeline

Initiatives

News

Multimedia

Feedback

Archive

Home

Crookston

Duluth

Morris

Rochester

Academic Task Force Recommendations for General College

March 30, 2005

Key messages

• The goal is to provide access to success for University of Minnesota students. Access that does not produce a degree in four-to-six years does not meet that goal.

• The strategic positioning initiative at the University of Minnesota seeks to improve graduation rates and the overall student experience.

• The university community shares the same goals and values, but sometimes – as with General College – disagrees on how to get there.

The University is committed to increasing access for low-income students.

• The new Founders Opportunity Scholarship will provide funding to augment federal and state financial aid to remove financial barriers that deter qualified low-income students from attending.

The University is committed to serving students of color.

• In the fall of 2003, 27 percent of the college students enrolled in Minnesota’s public and private four-year institutions attended a University of Minnesota campus, but 40 percent of the students of color were enrolled at a University of Minnesota campus.

• On the Twin Cities campus in fall 2004, students of color accounted for 16.4 percent of undergraduates and 18.4 percent of new freshmen, though the most recent data (2002-2003 academic year) shows that students of color account for 11.9 percent of all high school graduates in Minnesota.

• There are many options at the University for students of color in addition to General College; in fact, 81 percent of the students of color on the Twin Cities campus are enrolled in colleges other than General College.
  The University is committed to student success and graduation.

• Fewer than 60 percent of the students who begin in General College ever successfully transfer to degree-granting colleges.

• Graduation rates for students starting in General College are significantly below those of the rest of the University. We must find a better way to help students achieve success.
  • Most recent graduation rates:
    • Four-year Twin Cities campus colleges excluding GC: 37.8 percent
    • Four-year Twin Cities campus colleges including GC: 32.2 percent
    • Four-year for students beginning in GC: 7.7 percent
    • Six-year Twin Cities campus colleges excluding GC: 62.7 percent
    • Six-year Twin Cities campus colleges including GC: 56.4 percent
    • Six-year for students beginning in GC: 30.8 percent

Limited capacity is already restricting access to the University, which serves as the state’s only research university. There are many other higher education options in the state.

• The University received 20,500 freshman admission applications for fall 2005, but has the capacity to admit only 5,300 new freshman students.

• Students who are not as well suited for study at a major research university have many other educational opportunities in every region of the state that were not available when General College was created 73 years ago. The Minnesota Cooperative Admissions program offers students who complete two years successfully in another higher education system a transfer guarantee to the University of Minnesota.

• Graduation rates after five years for students who do transfer to the university are more than 10 percentage points higher than for those who enroll in General College.

• The University of Minnesota is not the major point of access for Minnesota undergraduate students. In 2003 12 percent of the new freshman in the state enrolled at the University of Minnesota, while 88 percent entered other post-secondary institutions. This is also true of peer research campuses in other states. All states have established different kinds of higher education systems in order to meet society’s evolving needs.

General College History

In 1932, the University created an experimental unit called “the Junior College of the University of Minnesota,” which involved into what is known today as General College. Prior to 1950 the state had established 17 junior colleges, but closed eight of them. There were no junior colleges in what is now the Twin Cities metropolitan area.

Between 1962 and 1972 the state established 31 junior colleges and area vocational technical institutes (AVTIs). During this period, the West Bank campus was built to accommodate increased enrollment on the University of Minnesota’s Twin Cities campus. In 1973 the state colleges were renamed state universities and the junior colleges were renamed community colleges. There are now 10 community and technical colleges and Metropolitan State University in the Twin Cities.

General College began with a two-year mission and eventually offered two baccalaureate degrees in general studies and applied studies, as well as associate degrees, but that practice was discontinued in the early 1990s. Since that time the college has returned to its original two-year transfer mission. In 1988 and in 1996, university leadership unsuccessfully recommended the closing of General College.

View other recommendations