<p>It seems fairly common for students to take longer than 4 years to graduate from college ( with colleges reporting their 6 yr grad rates). Financial aid and merit awards are typically only for 4 years. I haven't seen this discussed much on CC. what happens if a student can't graduate in 4 years? Will they just be full pay for the next year? How common is that? Does the continuation of FA/ merit depend on why the student couldn't finish.. If courses weren't available, if they did a term abroad and couldn't take the courses, if they took time for health issues, if they are just double majoring, or switched their major...or is it all treated the same?
We think we can swing the EFC for D's current top choices ( if they come up with the FA as predicted on NPCs), but a 5th year at full pay? Yikes!</p>
<p>You can ask the schools about this. Some will extend financial aid an extra year, some won’t. Merit awards often are not extended if they are specified as 4 year awards. Some schools have a fund where they will lend students money for that year at time, at low or zero interest rates.</p>
<p>My son had a housemate in that situation He was in very dire financial straits for his fifth or sixth year at a private high priced school. He was the house hobo, as they referred to him. He did graduate that year, however.</p>
<p>One reason I have made it VERY clear to my kids that I will help cover four years, and that is it (and they have to be self supporting at the end of that time, too). So no switching majors too much, messing up on your study abroad credits, or failing to pass enough classes to stay on track to graduate. I admit if they had a health issue that caused them to take longer, I would pay (but didn’t tell them that, and it didn’t come up). D1 graduated in 4 years no sweat, and D2 is on track in a tough STEM environment. Some of it is about setting expectations… at least give it a try.</p>
<p>Many/most schools only give aid for 4 years…some will give a 5th year for architecture.</p>
<p>Things like “not getting classes”, etc, are usually the student’s problem, not the school.</p>
<p>If you want your child to graduate in 4 years, then tell her:</p>
<p>No dropping needed classes.
If a needed class is only offered at an odd time, you still have to take it.
No changing majors if that means an additional semester/year is needed.</p>
<p>Both of my kids (and many kids here on CC) had NO PROBLEM graduating in 4 years. they easily could have graduated within 6-7 semesters.</p>
<p>Usually when kids need more than 4 years, THEY HAVE CAUSED the problem (which is one reason why schools don’t give more aid)…dropping classes, changing majors, refusing to take classes at certain day/times.</p>
<p>D1 graduated in 2 years but that is now followed by 4 years of professional school. Finishing undergrad in a timely manner can be especially important if planning on graduate school or professional school.</p>
<p>Students can definitely not be at fault for certain scheduling conflicts that delay graduation. If you attend a small college/have a major housed in a small department, you sometimes might have difficulties balancing everything. If you switched majors after a year and the major core courses are only offered once every two years and you happen to be on the off year due to just declaring your major, what can you do? Of course it is partly the student’s fault since they may have taken a year or two to decide on the major, but can they help that the department is small with limited majors and overworked faculty? </p>
<p>This actually almost happened to me but I luckily made the switch at the right time and got into the appropiate courses. But honestly, if I have to stay for an extra semester because something just can’t work out between the schedules of my two majors, I will most likely just suck it up and pay for it. It’s my choice to double-major, and even if there IS an administrative problem out of my control, I’d still take responsibility because at the end of the day, no one else can. </p>
<p>Today, with kids having a lot of college credits from AP and Dual Course classes, I think it is less common to NEED extra years to graduate. Maybe one extra semester at the most for tough curriculums such as engineering. My oldest managed to get her undergrad and Masters degrees in 4 years with some summer school. She had a 4 year scholarship , so she maximized the value of it that way. </p>
<p>^^^
Very true. With AP, DE, IB credits, graduating on-time becomes even less of an issue.</p>
<p>The important thing is to make sure the student KNOWS that aid will end after 4 years…many do NOT realize that. </p>
<p>Some will work on “double majors” or “extra minors” and then find that they can’t complete even one major in four years. Make sure that no additional majors/minors interfere with graduating on time.</p>
<p>@harvestmoon Even a small school should have an 8 semester plan, supported by their course offerings timed to create a schedule. If a school isn’t doing that, then the dept isn’t doing its job.</p>
<p>I’m kinda the opposite. I told my daughter that if she needs to take a summer class or go an extra semester so that she isn’t so stressed, that’s okay. Her program often has 17 or 18 credits scheduled, and she plays a spring sport, so I told her if she’d feel more comfortable dropping one class, do it. She can take English in the summer or at a community college and transfer the credits. I will have to pay because Bright Futures doesn’t pay in the summer, but I’m fine with that. Her school also has a lot of online courses because students take them during their co-op time, so it is easy to make up a class (but not cheap!)</p>
<p>My other child really has no excuses for not completing her program in 4 years. Even the study abroad program is easy to fit in as her department runs a program in London (if she wants a different program, then there might be some adjusting).</p>
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<p>This may be the case for students on these forums, most of whom are aiming for highly selective colleges or big merit scholarships at less selective schools. But remember that many college students were not as high achievers in high school (think of the 2.5 to 3.0 HS GPA students), so they may need remedial courses or need to take 12-14 (instead of the usual 15-16) credits per semester to handle the course work. Additionally, many of the students from poor families who are not at the top end of academic achievement (i.e. those who would not get admission to good-financial-aid schools or full ride scholarships at less selective schools) need to work considerable hours to afford to attend college, which may require reduced course loads.</p>
<p>Of course, these are all reasons associated more with the student rather than the school, although being from a poor family is not something the student can control.</p>
<p>Each college may have different policies on how extra semesters of school are handled for financial aid. Best to check each school for this specific question.</p>
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<p>That is why it would be a good idea for students to check whether the core courses for their majors of interest are offered at a reasonable frequency at the colleges that they are considering.</p>
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<p>Some of the most selective schools don’t accept those credits. My D2 attends a college that didn’t give credit for any of the four college courses she had taken or AP credit. APs do not even give placement, students have to take a department test for placement.</p>
<p>My nephew had 40 credits going into UF. It will still take him 4-5 years to finish (he’d taking a semester off right now). He re-took all the core classes over like bio and chem, and just wanted to take other classes even though he wasn’t required to.</p>
<p>My daughter took honors chem and then AP chem and she’s taking first year chem now and it is HARD for her. She has no AP credits at all and yet she was an honors student. She’s not a great standardize test taker, but does fine on ‘regular’ exams.</p>
<p>If he is taking a semester off, how many total semesters will he need? Some students take more than four calendar years, but eight or fewer semesters of school during that time. While this counts as “late” graduation in the common stats, it is not really late when counting semesters. Of course, financial aid and scholarship policies at each school need to be checked.</p>
<p>Thank you for the input. I believe all of the schools where D is applying will give some credit for her AP and IB tests, some more than others, so that does help. I guess I had gotten the impression that it had become fairly common for students to take longer to graduate. Hopefully that won’t be the case!</p>
<p>I read somewhere on CC where a student only took 12 credits a semester instead of the recommended 16 “to make it bearable” and was shocked to learn at the end of her junior year that she would not graduate in 4 years. I don’t think she was a math makor.</p>
<p>And there are grad programs (think certain med schools) that want to see the course on the transcript, not “AP credit”. Anyway,all that supposedly colleges evil stuff some kids do in high school isn’t always as useful as h’s students are led to believe.</p>
<p>I took an additional semester, received FAFSA aid and had a continuation of my merit scholarship. I had transferred in from another college, but the school did state that I would continue to receive my scholarship for as long as it took to get the degree - up to a point (it may have been 5 or 6 years, or up to a certain number of credits). This will vary greatly by school. </p>
<p>Summer/winter classes can help save time and money, particularly for general education requirements. An extra semester is pretty common from what I’ve seen - particularly for transfer students - but I rarely see anyone take more than 5 years to complete a degree. Students who take leaves of absence may be skewing the results you are seeing. I also see it more commonly at community colleges and less expensive state schools where the delay doesn’t cost the student or parents as much money.</p>
<p>So… I know a lot of parents like to leave this up to their kids, but given that it is my nickel for the most part, I do keep track of whether my kid is on track to graduate. I know what classes she is taking and for how many credits, how she is doing in fulfilling her core requirements, and also pointed out to her this semester that she needed to take a certain math class next semester as a pre-req to keep on track if she wants to major in CS (her current thinking). I don’t bug her about the details of her classes, but I do keep track at the macro level. It would be an expensive mistake for both of us if she took too few credits or missed a graduation requirement. This is for D2, who can be a little (okay, a lot…) flaky. D1 was on top of this herself, I didn’t get involved. But if you think your kid might mess it up… a little attention to it can go a long way in saving everybody a lot of money.</p>
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<p>It is fairly common to need more than 8 semesters to graduate with a bachelor’s degree. However, the risk of that happening to someone who is an A student in high school taking lots of the more rigorous course options (honors, AP, IB, whatever) is low.</p>
<p>At <a href=“Higher Education Research Institute”>http://www.heri.ucla.edu/GradRateCalculator.php</a> , you can pretend that a college is composed of 100% of students like the student in question to get an estimate of the chance of 4, 5, and 6 year graduation.</p>