Chancellor Michael Martin said the Louisiana Postsecondary Education Review Commission’s recommendation the University must increase its graduation rate to 75 percent by 2018 will be “a large leap” but is “doable.”The Commission, charged with analyzing higher education in the state, made the recommendation Tuesday. “You’ll see our [graduation] rate rise from about 62 percent to about 68 percent based on the recent trend improvement in retention, but it will still be a stretch to 75 percent,” Martin said in an e-mail to The Daily Reveille. Martin said the University will be able to achieve a graduation rate of 75 percent if it can continue to raise admission standards, which currently require incoming freshmen to have earned a 3.0 GPA in high school and a composite ACT score of at least 22. Undergraduate admission standards are determined by the LSU Board of Supervisors and University faculty. Martin said the University must also improve its retention rate to 90 percent or more. The University’s retention rate was 58.4 percent in 2007. If students continue to carry as close to full loads of course work as possible, the 75 percent graduation rate is possible, Martin said. He said University students carry an average of 14.2 credit hours per semester, while the average for other four-year institutions in the state is 11.7. Retention rates have increased steadily since 1988 when the University began implementing stricter admission requirements, but the administration is still working to improve the percentage of graduating students, Bob Kuhn, associate vice chancellor for the Office of Budget and Planning, told The Daily Reveille on Sept. 24. But the Commission’s recommendation for increased graduation rates is not just for LSU. The Commission recommended all other public colleges and universities reach 50 percent by 2018 as well. The average in the state is about 40 percent.The Louisiana Postsecondary Education Review Commission will present a report to the Board of Regents in February that will include the graduation rate recommendation — the Commission’s first — along with others. That report, after being analyzed by the Regents, will go to the Legislature in the spring. Lawmakers will have to decide how to deal with a $146 million cut in state funding for Louisiana’s public colleges and universities for the next fiscal year. The Commission’s next meetings are Nov. 16-17.- – – -Contact Kyle Bove at [email protected]