The College Fix Editor Nathan Hale has complied a list and checked it twice, finding out which school is naughty and which one is just plain worthless.

The Chronicle of Higher Education has published data on graduation rates at more than 1200 colleges nationwide. Below, I’ve compiled a list of the ten four-year public universities in the U.S. with the worst graduation rates. Some of these institutions have graduations rates that are so poor, it makes you wonder whether they serve any useful purpose at all. For example, at the University of Houston – Downtown, only 1% of the more than 12,000 students enrolled is able to graduate on time. Even after six years, only 12.4% are able to graduate. By way of comparison, the University of Virginia, a leading public 4-year institution, boasts a 4-year graduation rate of 84.5%, and a 6-year graduation rate of 92.7%.

The unfortunate reality is that many of these low-performing universities serve an overwhelmingly low-income and low-academic performance body of students. These are the very people who can least afford to borrow money for a degree they never will finish. It’s the dirty little secret of the “college is for everyone” racket. The one thing that is indisputably worse than having no college degree, is having no college degree plus tens of thousands of dollars in student loans.

Public universities have a special obligation to serve the public interest. They are financed with tax dollars, and therefore tax payers have a right to ask whether they are getting their money’s worth.