<p>I find the readily available 4 and 6 year graduation rates for different universities very helpful. Still, I'd love to see this broken down a bit by major. In particular, I know that at many universities it is especially difficult to complete an engineering degree in 4 years. When I compare universities, it seems that universities with more engineering students have lower 4 year graduation rates. </p>
<p>ABET accredited engineering degrees are quite different from most other bachelors degrees. A university cannot simply reduce degree requirements to moderate the workload and increase graduation rates without losing ABET accreditation.</p>
<p>If a student knows they want to seek an engineering degree, they would like to know how long it takes students at different universities to earn ABET engineering degrees. If a student does not want to seek an engineering degree, they would be better served by seeing the graduation rates of non-engineering students.</p>
<p>Can anyone advise me as to how I might find 4 year graduation rates for engineering and non-engineering bachelors degrees at different universities?</p>
<p>One has to be careful in determining whether the cause of late graduation is school-related or student-related. In general, more selective schools have higher 4-year (8-semester or 12-quarter is really more relevant) graduation rates, since student-related reasons for late graduation are less common:</p>
<ul>
<li>Student needs remedial course work.</li>
<li>Student fails courses and needs to repeat them.</li>
<li>Student takes a lighter course load than needed to complete major in 8 semesters.</li>
<li>Student changes major late.</li>
</ul>
<p>The school-related reasons for graduating late would be things like:</p>
<ul>
<li>Lack of space in needed courses.</li>
<li>Infrequent offering of courses which are important in prerequisite sequences.</li>
<li>Poor advising.</li>
</ul>
<p>Some schools have higher 4-year rates because of an 8-semester rule that makes it very difficult to enroll for a 9th or subsequent semester. Which really means that if you fall behind too much, you end up with some other major.</p>
<p>That is a problem with looking at “4-year” graduation rates, instead of “8-semester” graduation rates that only count semesters in school, as opposed to co-op jobs or other time not in school. You are probably thinking about Northeastern and Drexel in terms of co-ops, but there are some other schools where co-ops are optional but popular.</p>
<p>Even back in the last quarter of the last century when I was in college, it was generally acknowledged that engineering majors would be likely to spend an extra term or two to get through the classes they had flunked the first time around. If you are concerned about whether you in particular will finish engineering in four years, you might be best off to choose a hideously expensive private university where you flat-out won’t be able to pay for a fifth year.</p>
<p>More interesting IMHO is the percentage of entering engineering students that graduate with a degree in engineering. Nationwide something between 1/3 to 1/2 of those starting do not finish (depending on major). The numbers are much smaller at more selective schools, probably because they’re starting with stronger students.</p>
<p>Yes, there is likely a very strong correlation between higher selectivity and freshman -> graduation in engineering. For example, Berkeley engineering freshmen graduate with engineering degrees 80% of the time, which is much higher than the overall average, presumably due to the highly selective nature of Berkeley engineering.</p>
<p>Indeed, the overall average may be even worse; some of the claims are that only about a third of engineering freshmen graduate with engineering degrees (although some who do not graduate with engineering degrees do graduate in other majors).</p>
<p>You know, reading the comments below that article really discourages me from staying in Engineering. What happened to the benefits of staying in Engineering? :(</p>
<p>If what you like is solving design problems using math and science, then engineering is a good fit for you. On the other hand, if you like something else a lot better, then the something else might be a better fit.</p>
<p>Job and career prospects do come into play, in that most types of engineers tend to have relatively good job and career prospects most (not all) of the time, compared to most other majors. However, choosing a major that you do not really like only because of the job and career prospects is not such a good idea (unless you dislike everything else equally or more so).</p>
<p>Don’t be discouraged by statistics. If you are interested in engineering then pursue it and be willing to work hard.
Another factor that is overlooked is that some kinds switch into other fields because:
a) they get exposed to other majors/careers by taking courses to fulfill “gen-ed” requirements, or by having a roommate or friends in other majors, attending a lecture etc. etc. How much did you know when you were an entering freshman?
b) Because they didn’t have exposure to engineering studies in high school, they don’t have a good understanding of what engineering is all about. And in many engineering schools that intro courses are so theoretical that the students still don’t get a good idea of why they should stick it out. Not enough hands-on to fuel their interest.</p>
<p>I noticed when we were visiting engineering schools for my son, that many schools are successful in producing engineers because they are focused on that goal and have created a culture of success and specific programs to combat the most common problems. They have professors who are committed to teaching undergrads, great academic support programs, encouraging students to learn from each other, encouraging students to get help when they start to struggle etc. I’m most familiar with WPI’s culture, but I saw it at some other schools as well (Clarkson, Olin, Lafayette, Bucknell, Tufts - those of the ones that come to mind now). I’m sure there are others. UMass Lowell said that their research had shown the major of kids leaving engineering did so because Calculus was such a struggle for them that they felt they could never succeed. So in addition to adding more academic support, they created a different sequence of calculus courses that took 50% longer to complete. They found some students needed to take calculus just a little more slowly than others, especially if they had come from schools with weak math programs. And these students were successful once they got over the calculus speed-bump.</p>