If that is true, then that is a good thing. When I was in high school, the way high school courses were run did not become like college courses. Some (e.g. AP calculus BC) taught college level material well (as in being well prepared for more advanced college courses afterward), but the format was still like other high school courses.
@dfbdfb no i would exclude those situations - i am more concerned with isolating the cases wherein there should be no impediments to graduating on time such as religious missions, health or poverty. I do not believe those adequately explain the drop in graduation rates - i sincerely believe that many public university students are simply not academically ready and focused on college even if you adjust for poverty and other aspects.
@ucbalumnus the BYU number was precisely requested because i was curious about the LDS missions’ impact.
It is interesting to not how much better UCB, UCLA, and in particular UVA do vs expectations. I believe it is because the admitted pool is academically better prepared for college.
The expectations in that calculator are based on measures of academic preparation (grades and test scores), though it looks like gender and race/ethnicity have enough of an effect to be included as well. So there must be other factors not used by that calculator that are relevant to over (or under) performance relative to expectations. (e.g. cost, financial aid, SES background of students, non-traditional students, commuter students, selection of majors, co-ops, etc.)
@ucbalumnus true. and some of those are probably hard to quantify. I have a daughter about to go to college and I looked at her in states (she lives in OR with her mom and I live in FL so she qualified for instate in both) for pinning down a safety and in visiting and researching UO, OSU and UF, FSU - I felt very strongly that the OR publics are full of kids that are not really ready for college. For example UF has substantially better than expected graduation rates, but OSU is quite bad comparatively with a 31% on time rate, and its 6 year rate is about as expected. Could it be because Oregon is hardly known for great high schools while Florida has quite a few decent HS and many great private? Or selection bias because UF is a much higher ranked institution?
Oh and I would suspect UF has a lot more economically disadvantaged URM population than OSU as well. Haven’t checked that though.
Also found an interesting website: http://www.collegefactual.com/colleges/university-of-florida/academic-life/graduation-and-retention/ - this one probably uses HERI calculator and CDS data. saves time
When D was applying to colleges, some of the merit money schools attempted to sell themselves to students who were passionate about learning by suggesting that with money saved, students could afford a fifth year of classes and need not limit themselves to a major or overlapping majors, or have to cram everything they wanted to accomplish into eight semesters of overwhelming course loads. An engineering student, for example, could have time and space to learn a new language through to the highest levels,
or take classes involving hundreds of pages of reading per week, or a humanities major could commit to taking prerequisites and upper-level STEM classes.
A few allowed for merit funding for a fifth year to complete a second major that did not overlap with the first.
No idea if any schools are still doing this.
Also, when S was in school, many engineers took longer than four years to graduate because they were doing co-op rotations if the economy was good enough to offer these to large numbers of students.
I will add though that ideally graduation is not the end of learning even for students who will not re-enter a classroom, and is called “commencement” for a reason.
Re: #43
Those CollegeFactual links list both UO and UF with higher than expected graduation rates, though UF is higher in both expected and actual, presumably due to higher admission selectivity.
Beware of Florida publics’ mandatory summer sessions, even if the student could graduate in 8 or fewer semesters without a summer session. I.e. the student may graduate in 4 years, but with more than 8 semesters of tuition-paying attendance.
http://www.flbog.edu/documents_regulations/regulations/6.016_technical_change_2009_09_29.pdf
@ucbalumnus yikes! well she will have 45 credits (thats the max they will give her) between the IB and Community college courses she will have completed. Did not know about this summer thing. So if she does go to UF, she might as well take a full summer term with 15 or more credits and graduate in 2 calendar years instead of 2.5. I will have a brains fried teenager though… especially with florida summer heat.
Maybe it was my school district but I didn’t find college classes at all intimidating in format. Just like HS freshmen can handle anything their HS allows them college is a natural progression for students who are accepted. The primary factor may be study habits. Expectations are given at the beginning of a semester and paying attention to those with making plans to get the work done should be a skill acquired by then.
khanam. Your D needs to know what she will do once she has her college degree. So she gets the minimum number of credits, including requirements for a major- then what? My 16 (17 in fall) son started college and could have had his math degree after 3 years but would not have been prepared enough to be competitive for grad school, interviews, the GREs… The fourth year still kept him a year ahead of his agemates but he only applied to top grad schools Coming from one and grad courses for his honors degree) in a brutally competitive field. Did not get into any, chose to do a fifth year as an undergrad (cancelled graduating) to add comp sci. He then chose to work instead of applying to grad schools again, stating he was tired of school! He had done no more years of it than others his age.
I would be concerned about academic burnout for your D. My son did his early entry/grade compression in elementary school and had plenty of childhood activities throughout HS along with the AP et al classes. I hope your D has had time for seemingly frivolous activities throughout her HS years. If not, college is the time to LIVE. Also, in order to finish all of the courses required for a chosen (not just one than can be done) major she may need more than the two years to get the classes. Plan on three years, not a hypothetical two years to do this. Also give her the gift of a normal, nonpressured college experience. There is so much more to life than academics- music, sports, arts…
@wis75 you are right. that is a concern. i do worry about academic burnout too. she has been very aggressive so far in squeezing in academics. A friend of mine’s son also graduated from college in 2 years (similar profile), did research for a year and then went to med school - and obviously that formula is embedded in her mind.
She wants to get a PhD (or possibly a degree in medicine) after college. So far her ECs have been very strong and she has managed to be very active in Visual Art but does complain about lack of time and sleep.
@khanam Regarding your daughter, what kind of graduation rates do you get if you plug in to the calculator at http://www.heri.ucla.edu/GradRateCalculator.php the numbers of a fictional college whose students are all just like her? Perhaps that can give you a ballpark of how likely she personally is to graduate within 4/5/6 years.
There is a research paper associated with the calculator at http://heri.ucla.edu/pr-display.php?prQry=80 . Some other factors besides academic credentials at entry associated with graduation rates were (in Appendix A):
Female(+) (instead of male)
American Indian(-) (instead of white)
African American(-) (instead of white)
Latino(-) (instead of white)
Multiracial(-) (instead of white)
Native English speaker(-)
Catholic(+) (instead of Protestant Christian)
Jewish(+) (instead of Protestant Christian)
Public charter high school(-) (instead of regular public high school)
One or both parents deceased(-) (instead of alive and living with each other)
Parents alive and divorced or living apart(-) (instead of alive and living with each other)
Concern about paying for college(-)
Felt depressed(-)
Came late to class(-)
Intended major biological science(-) (instead of undecided)
Intended major business(+) (instead of undecided)
Intended major education(+) (instead of undecided)
Intended major engineering(-) (instead of undecided)
Intended major English(+) (instead of undecided)
Intended major fine arts(-) (instead of undecided)
Intended major health profession(-) (instead of undecided)
Intended major history or political science(+) (instead of undecided)
Intended major humanities(+) (instead of undecided)
Intended major physical science(-) (instead of undecided)
Intended major social science(+) (instead of undecided)
Intended major other technical(-) (instead of undecided)
Intended major other(+) (instead of undecided)
Frosh year living with family or relatives(-) (instead of campus dorm)
Frosh year living other private home, apartment, or room(-) (instead of campus dorm)
Frosh year living in fraternity or sorority(-) (instead of campus dorm)
Frosh year living other campus student housing(-) (instead of campus dorm)
Frosh year living other(-) (instead of campus dorm)
Expect to transfer to another college(-)
Historically black college or university(+)
Public university(-) (instead of private university)
Public four year college(-) (instead of private university)
Nonsectarian four year college(+) (instead of private university)
Catholic four year college(+) (instead of private university)
Other religious four year college(+) (instead of private university)
Of the non-academic things listed in #49, some of the more directly controllable non-academic aspects in college selection that may affect the student’s chance of on-time graduation (besides the type of college) include choosing a college that does not cause concern over paying for it, that the student likes (i.e. does not want to transfer away from later), and where the student can live in the dorm during frosh year (though this value may be lower at a predominantly commuter school).
@ucbalumnus ah let me check. hold on, how do i use it? do i put in yes in the box next to “female”?
figured it out 80, 90, 92? that seems very low
Remember, even academically top-end students do not always graduate in four years. Actual 4/5/6 year graduation rates:
School Actual 4/5/6 year graduation rates
Amherst 87/93/94
Caltech 85/90/92
Harvard 86/95/98
MIT 81/89/91
Pomona 90/92/93
Princeton 90/95/96
Stanford 76/91/95
Swarthmore 89/92/93
Williams 89/94/95
Yale 87/95/96
Some non-academic reasons why students may graduate late:
- Co-op jobs or other semesters/quarters off school (this is generally benign if the total number of semesters/quarters is not larger than the usual number).
- Medical issues requiring withdrawal or time off school.
^ ^
Another factor may be due to commitments to arts/music careers or political activism.
A major factor in why my LAC’s 5 year graduation rate was as low as 66% in the '90s as a critical mass of classmates during that period took time off from undergrad for their art/music or political activism commitments.
Incidentally, one member of '90s alternative band Weezer took time off from Harvard to concentrate full time on his band and finished some years later in 2006:
On the UF (state of Florida) summer requirement, you can also get it waived in place of doing a summer internship or study abroad. It’s also possible to take your 9 credits at another SUS school, like UNF, UCF, USF, etc. If you have one near home, she could come home for that summer and take the classes. (I wouldn’t recommend more than 9 credits over a summer term).
See the following link for more details:
http://www.aa.ufl.edu/Data/Sites/18/media/policies/summer-term-enrollment-policy.pdf
@Gator88NE understood, but why do they have such an odd requirement? Is it to manage the population density?
The campuses are all under utilized during the summer. You have faculty and facilities, to support far more students, than actually take classes. Also, by taking a few classes over the summer, it helps keep students on track to graduate (another Board of Governor’s goal).
This is also the main reason the Florida universities allow Freshman to enroll in summer “B”.
@cobrat @ucbalumnus I fully understand the deliberate delaying of graduation due to other items such as a new business launch, political activism, etc.
However, I do believe many dropouts especially in lower academic standard state universities is because there is a substantial population of kids who are unable to cope with the workload at college and do not have a solid foundation from high school. It’s not just lack of money, or medical issues or missions or other deliberate plans. Those are understandable but just 19% on time graduation rates at non flagship state universities?
Maybe such kids should go to 2 year community colleges first. At least they have a greater chance of getting an AA. Then they can decide if they wish to transfer to a BA college. Having them continue to stay with the parents will also solve the distraction and money for college issue. Obama’s plan certainly has merit in these cases.
I think we have been shoving unprepared kids into college for decades but the underemployment issue is becoming more acute and the politicians, unfortunately, push for more college enrollment thinking that will cure it. No amount of further history graduates are needed by the system than there already are being generated. This is not the cure.
The Swiss systems weeds out kids into various streams based on their grades at every stage. We need to have a gradated approach as well. Even allowing some kids to apply to some colleges is ridiculous. If you have a 3.0 why are you applying to UCLA? It’s just wasting your time and the adcom officers’. This madness needs to be controlled. 119,000 kids applied to UCLA. Um what? The population isn’t growing that fast. Why this crazy rush?
On a different note, I also look at the academic curricula at any standard university and it feels like it’s stuck in the 70s. The world has suddenly become supremely interconnected and we still try to force feed knowledge the same old fashioned way & everyone still largely learns the same things. Is our academic curriculum appropriate for these times?
Back to the thread subject. When taking into account how long it should take to get a degree, keep in mind, that public colleges (especially in Florida) need to make room for next year’s class.
It’s another capacity issue. The state of Florida enforces it through the “Excess Hours Surcharge”. If you exceed 115% of the credit hours required by your degree program, you have to start paying a 100% surcharge on the normal tuition rate.
The state of Florida wants you to get your BS/BA and move on, to grad school, med school, work, whatever. Make space for the next batch of kids…