Posted on July 27, 2011

Chicago State let Failing Students Stay on the Rolls

Jodi S. Cohen, Chicago Tribune, July 25, 2011

Chicago State University, which was at risk of losing its accreditation because of troubling enrollment and retention figures, intentionally let failing students stay on the rolls to boost its numbers, a Tribune investigation found.

Chicago State has a policy that students with a grade-point average below 1.8 will be dismissed “for poor scholarship,” but records obtained by the newspaper show students were allowed to continue registering for classes with GPAs as low as 0.0.

By not enforcing its own policy, CSU permitted untold numbers of students — perhaps hundreds — to remain enrolled. The school dismissed 298 undergraduates at the end of this past spring term, the same time the Tribune began asking for data on student grades.

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