A press release from the Department of Public Instruction says the rate of students graduating in four years or less is now 83.8 percent … up from 82.5 percent in 2013 and from 68.3 percent when the state first started reporting the four-year cohort graduation rate in 2006. The percentage of students graduating in five-years or less is 84.9. DPI notes the graduation rate has risen despite students needing at least 22 credits to graduate compared to needing 20 in 2009. DPI also reported that all subgroups of students had higher graduation rates in 2014 from the prior year. There was a significant gap in graduation rates between male and female students. Women graduated last year at a nearly 88 percent rate while men were just over 80. I’m George Olsen.
George Olsen is a 1977 Havelock High School graduate. He received his B.A. in Broadcast Journalism from the University of South Carolina in 1982 where he got his first taste of non-commercial radio working for their student station WUSC. After graduation he worked about five years in commercial radio before coming to work at Public Radio East where he has remained since outside of a nearly 3-year stint as jazz and operations coordinator at WUAL in Tuscaloosa, Alabama in the early 1990s. On his return to eastern North Carolina he hosted classical music for Public Radio East before moving into the Morning Edition host position and now can be heard on All Things Considered. He also hosts and produces The Sound, five hours of Americana, Roots Rock and Contemporary Folk weekday evenings on PRE Public Radio East News & Ideas, and is a news and feature producer for Public Radio East.