<p>I just noticed in the Princeton Review 377 Colleges book that IIT has a four-year graduation rate of 34% and a six-year rate of 64%, both extremely low. Does anyone know what's up with that?</p>
<p>There are several causes for this. The first is the fact that we mostly have STEM majors and Architects. The architecture degree is a 5-year program and lots of engineering students take 5 years to graduate. The 6-year graduation rate is heavily dependent on the first year retention rate and a significant number of students come in thinking they want to be engineers but find out that that is not for them and instead of finding a different major at IIT, they transfer out. Finally we always have a fraction of students who just can’t handle the academics and don’t make it past the first year. </p>
<p>Raising the 6-year graduation rate is important and the university is working to improve that. They have put in place an early warning system to catch students when they are having a hard time during their first terms at the university. They have also opened new majors to offer to students who are not interested in engineering after their first year. </p>
<p>Of course any of these interventions will take a number of years to show their effect as the graduation rates are usually reported as 6-year averages and students entering this year won’t even be in the statistics until 2018 at the earliest.</p>
<p>@xraymancs That’s really helpful - thanks much.</p>
I think xray hit it right on the head. I graduated IIT in three years with a BS Accounting. Most of my friends in Engineering took around five years, but many were getting their master degrees along the way as well. The university does not hold anyone back with lack of class availability or other issues.