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<p>On the other hand, in my daughter’s circle of friends at college, only one will not graduate on schedule in 4 years – and that’s because he graduated after 3 years. </p>
<p>But only 1 kid in this bunch is an engineering major.</p>
<p>Some degrees and majors require many more credits than others in order to graduate, and graduation requirements for some majors seem to be creeping upwards. More required courses means more difficulty in scheduling.</p>
<p>Some students leave tech schools because their interests and career goals change dramatically and the tech school does not offer a wide enough range of appealing majors, or offer sufficient challenge in non-STEM majors.</p>
<p>When we looked at engineering schools, some told us that when demand for engineering talent is up, students often leave for long periods to take up paying work, while when demand is down, there are few co-op or internship opportunities and students are more inclined to go straight through in four years and even perhaps on to grad school, for lack of other viable options. </p>
<p>Of course, low demand for technical skills might also reduce motivation to complete a challenging degree. </p>
<p>I would be inclined to ask, school by school, why students leave, and which students leave.</p>
<p>Another thing to consider is whether the college has joint BA/BS-grad degree programs. Students who participate in those don’t finish in 4 or even 6 years. At Pitzer there are 5 joint bachelor-masters programs with CGU (including psych, which is the most popular major) and also a 7-year joint medical degree with Western Medical U. These are all popular programs. I don’t know, though, exactly what percentage of students participate in them.</p>
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<p>I would be shocked if Pitzer does not count that student as having graduated in four years. The 5th is a MA. Ditto the combined med/law programs.</p>
<p>It’s an interesting question. Schools market themselves with certain statistics, but other statistics (such as 4 and 6 year graduation rates) can tell you something too, but I’m not sure exactly what they reflect. I looked at 4 year graduation rates for 15 schools my son (HS '14) is considering, and many of the small liberal arts ones (Gettysburg, Dickinson, Vassar, Furman) had rates > 80%. Others on his list: College of Charleston, U Mass Amherst, Clemson were in the 50-55% range. What accounts for the difference? Smaller schools care more about each student’s learning experience and have more systems in place to encourage them to take classes they like and finish in 4 years?</p>
<p>I am particularly focused right now on the quality of teaching and advising, but I don’t know of a statistic that measures that. What might reflect good advising (or poor advising) is % of freshman who drop/withdraw from a class. I don’t think I found this in the common data set.</p>
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<p>Primarily wealth of the incoming student body.</p>
<p>As the parent of 2 students attending SUNY schools, part of the problem at the SUNY schools are too many students and not enough spaces in the general ed courses. Many of these gen eds are required for upper level courses ie freshman writing. Both sons had trouble getting into the required freshman courses since there weren’t enough seats and they had to delay taking them until later. Fortunately both sons entered with AP and university in high school classes so in the long run it won’t delay them graduating on time, 4 years, but if they didn’t already have some courses they would have had to take courses over the summer or take an extra semester to graduate. Due to budget cuts and the economy sending more students to public universities, I only see the problem with graduation rates getting worse at the NY publics.</p>
<p>Yes, you may be reading too much into the stats. As pointed out by Nova10, the national average 6 year grade rate is 55%. It doesn’t include transfers. The chronicle published some research recently (and it was discussed here on cc) that about 1/3 of college students transfer. That’s a whole lot of movement. If you’re looking only at one kind of school (highly selective admissions, good fin aid), I’d expect you can see numbers much higher than national averages. But honestly, for nearly everyplace else, it’s kind of a crap shoot.</p>
<p>Assuming that fin aid wasn’t consistant is dangerous. Very few schools bait and switch. It’s just bad business. More likely? Scholarship is lost (grades didn’t meet benchmarks), athletic money is lost (kid discovers college sports-at nearly any level-are brutal and leaves team; or athletic money is lost due to grades), kid chose an unaffordable school to begin with and comes to his/her senses. All these reasons for leaving fall in the broad category of “financial.” </p>
<p>Missypie had a great list of non-financial reasons for transfer, too. </p>
<p>I think you need to consider the different missions of the schools when looking at the data. A very small school, for example, doesn’t have a huge number of majors, and let’s face it, kids change their minds (changed my own major 5 times!). So, I’d expect very small schools, especially those that specialize in a particular area, to have lower retention rates. ANd since one can’t count transfers in, lower grad rates. </p>
<p>Lots of us here on the parents forum are generally well off. We plan on our kids going straight through. That is not the reality for many kids. For economic reasons, they leave to work, come back, leave again, step down to a cc because it’s cheaper, come back to a 4 year, lose credits in the transfer process. Some will get tired and never finish. This affects a schools numbers, and I think you’ll see it at many publics. Doubtful it says much about the school itself.</p>
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<p>However, you need to ask whether >4 year graduation is due to having to spend more semesters in school (due to taking lighter than normal course loads, repeating failed courses, or changing major late), or for more innocuous reasons.</p>
<p>For example, it is common for engineering students to take a semester or quarter off to do a co-op job (paid). Such a student may graduate “late”, but spend only 8 semesters or 12 quarters in school. At some schools like Northeastern or Drexel, almost every student graduates “late” in calendar terms, though not necessarily needing excess numbers of semesters or quarters in school.</p>
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<p>In practice, the engineering divisions (or entire schools for Stanford, Caltech, Mudd) named above are so selective now that many students come in with useful AP credit (particularly in math), giving themselves more schedule “breathing room” (e.g. can start the physics sequence early, which allows taking some engineering courses early, etc.).</p>
<p>Interestingly, Berkeley and UCLA differ in 4 (calendar) year graduation rates of engineering majors. At Berkeley, the 4 year graduation rate is higher for engineering majors than overall, while for UCLA, it is lower, based on [University</a> of California: StatFinder](<a href=“http://statfinder.ucop.edu%5DUniversity”>http://statfinder.ucop.edu) .</p>
<p>One college from Happykid’s short list has a very distinct performing arts & communications focus. Many students leave because they change from those majors to others that promise more steady employment, and many leave because they flat-out run out of money. However, a significant proportion leave because they get a well-paying gig and their performance or production commitments are not compatible with being a full-time (or even a part-time) student.</p>
<p>If a college promotes itself as a 4 year program,undergrad,which most do, the curriculum is designed for 4 years.Anything below 80% in 4years would make me wonder.At todays costs another1 or 2 is outrageous.Remember when evaluating merit aid it may only last a limited period.</p>
<p>There seem to be fewer than 100 four year schools with an 80% or higher four (calendar) year graduation rate:</p>
<p>[Highest</a> 4-Year Graduation Rates | Rankings | US News](<a href=“http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/highest-grad-rate]Highest”>http://colleges.usnews.rankingsandreviews.com/best-colleges/rankings/highest-grad-rate)</p>
<p>As noted before, an important distinction would be whether “late” graduations mean extra semesters or quarters in school, or not. Also, whether any need or merit aid time limits are based on calendar years, or semesters or quarters in school.</p>
<p>My two sons go to a California State University (CSU) where the 6 year graduation rate is only 42%. Many CSUs have similar 6 year graduation rates and one has a 32% graduation rate. CSUs only look at the Math and Critical Reading sections of the SATs for admission and my elder son had a Math+CR SAT score of 1300/1600 and the younger 1400/1600 but they were hopeless slackers in HS with low GPAs so they ended up at at a CSU. Looking at the average M+CR SAT scores for admitted CSU students, with a few exceptions, they rarely exceed 1000/1600. Clearly these schools are accepting a very large number of students who are simply not capable of doing college level work and therefore the low graduation rates are to be expected.</p>
<p>Williams’ graduation rate of 91% is created by a 4-1-4 schedule that allows a lighter load and still yields the credits needed for graduation. And then, they kick you out. They do not allow any student to hang around after 8 semesters. If you aren’t done, you’re going to have to make up the credits somewhere else. Great motivator.</p>
<p>There may also be financial motivations. If tuition is expensive, there is large incentive to avoid taking an extra semester, whether one is full pay, or if one has financial aid grants or merit scholarships that stop after eight semesters.</p>
<p>Berkeley’s four year graduation rate steadily rose in the 1990s and 2000s as both costs and admission selectivity increased.</p>