For the 2010-11 school year, 8,142 of the 9,950 students who applied were accepted, or 81.8 percent, said Judy Tatum, WSU director of undergraduate admissions.

...

Incoming freshmen were admitted if they had a minimum grade point average of 2.75, and an ACT score of 17, Tatum said. If a student had a grade point average below 2.75, they were only admitted if they scored 21 on the ACT.

...

Meanwhile, WSU's graduation rates are among the worst when compared to other Michigan public universities, and well below the 49 percent national average. After five years, full-time students graduated in 2009 from Michigan State University at a rate of 73 percent and from Western Michigan University at 47 percent, compared to 23 percent of WSU students. Only Lake Superior State University had a lower five-year graduation rate — 22 percent — according to the Michigan House Fiscal Agency.

...

"Wayne State is more of a big community college instead of a university and our graduation rates are so low, it's kind of ridiculous compared to the other major universities," said Southfield native Brian Walker, a junior who called for a change to admissions in the WSU student newspaper last semester.


From The Detroit News: http://detnews.com/article/20110309/...#ixzz1G7DErekV



The low admissions standards at WSU drives better students away. A major city ought to have a top-quality university as well as less competitive colleges. Perhaps a UM-Detroit but with standards closer to UM-AA than UM-Flint or UM-Dearborn.

Letting lots of weak students in devalues the learning of other students, and isn't really fair to the weaker student who'll pay a bunch of money to WSU for a while, until they drop out without a degree. What's 2.5 years of WSU do for you on your resume?

There needs to be an institution for the less-qualified student [[Baker, Davenport?) but WSU needs to figure out if it wants to be a top research institution or, as the student quoted in the article said, a really large community college.