The graduation rate is one of the most important metrics to look at while evaluating or comparing colleges. The graduation rate gives you an idea of the percentage of the full time freshmen that graduate with an undergraduate degree in a specified number of years. Graduation rate profiles are very different for private and public colleges. Let's take a look at public universities and see what would be a good stress test for them.
Public Universities
Public universities were established to offer education mostly to resident students. The public universities can be either large university systems or a standalone university. The large university systems can either be a distributed campus system or a main flagship and satellite campus system and in a few cases a hybrid system. An example of the distributed campus is the University of California. A flagship and satellite campus system example would be the Pennsylvania State University system. A good example of the hybrid system is the SUNY (State University of New York) system.