Concordia College sets its ranking straight
In what's probably a no-duh moment for those who know of the institution, it turns out Concordia College of Moorhead should never have been on Washington Monthly's list of worst College Drop-Out Factories.
I remember calling Concordia spokeswoman Amy Kelly at home the evening I saw the ranking, which erroneously stated that Concordia had a graduation rate of only 5 percent. (Scroll down the link above to get to the Concordia section.)
She assured me the magazine had made a mistake, and a little research showed the college has in fact an overall grad rate of 59 percent -- which I included in my post.
Big goof for the magazine -- compounded by Kelly's assertion (assuming it's accurate) that it had never called the college about the final ranking. (It's a tough job when you're dealing with a lot of institutions, but when journalists report negative data like that, it's considered good practice to call for reaction and double-check figures.)
It was one element in a fairly high-profile error. Washington Post education writer Jay Mathews -- who I think saw the list after the magazine had dropped Concordia -- wrote about yet another revision involving other colleges.
I've got a call out to see whether the goof caused any problems for the folks in Moorhead.
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