<p>Do students really graduate in four years? Those extra years cost $$$$$$
Here is a list of top national universities sorted by the percent of students who take longer than four years to graduate (smaller percent of late grads at the top). Also included is the SAT 75th percentile based on the premise that smarter students finish sooner. Also included is the percent of graduates in Business, Engineering, Science, Comp Sci based on the premise that students who have lots of labs or who do co-op/internships take longer to graduate. Students at Brigham Young have to do a missionary year, I think.</p>
<p>Students at private schools seem to graduate sooner. I wonder why?</p>
<p>school / percent of grads in Bus, Eng, Sci, Comp Sci / SAT 75th percentile / graduation rate after 4 years / graduation rate after 6 years (the max) / difference between 4- and 6-year rate</p>
<p>based on recent IPEDS data</p>
<p>Boston College 32% 1420 88 91 3
Georgetown University 24% 1490 90 94 4
Duke University 29% 1560 90 94 4
Brandeis University 18% 1440 83 88 5
Tufts University 22% 1480 87 92 5
University of Notre Dame 43% 1500 90 96 6
Fordham University 33% 1290 72 78 6
New York University 19% 1410 78 84 6
American University 19% 1370 64 71 7
George Washington University 26% 1390 72 79 7
University of Chicago 18% 1560 82 89 7
Northwestern University 23% 1500 86 93 7
Princeton University 30% 1590 89 96 7
Columbia University in the City of New York 30% 1540 86 93 7
University of Pennsylvania 36% 1490 87 94 7
Vanderbilt University 27% 1460 82 89 7
California Institute of Technology 87% 1570 81 89 8
Pepperdine University 38% 1350 71 79 8
Yale University 15% 1580 88 96 8
Emory University 26% 1470 79 87 8
Washington University in St Louis 40% 1530 83 91 8
Dartmouth College 17% 1550 86 94 8
Cornell University 46% 1490 84 92 8
College of William and Mary 26% 1440 83 91 8
Clark University 20% 1310 63 72 9
University of Rochester 29% 1420 71 80 9
Wake Forest University 30% 1400 79 88 9
University of Virginia-Main Campus 30% 1430 83 92 9
Johns Hopkins University 30% 1490 82 92 10
Harvard University 18% 1590 87 98 11
Tulane University of Louisiana 38% 1425 60 71 11
Boston University 32% 1370 70 81 11
Massachusetts Institute of Technology 79% 1560 82 93 11
Worcester Polytechnic Institute 93% 1390 64 75 11
Syracuse University 31% 1330 71 82 11
Lehigh University 67% 1390 75 86 11
Brown University 26% 1530 83 94 11
Saint Louis University-Main Campus 40% 1300 63 75 12
University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 23% 1390 71 84 13
Miami University-Oxford 39% 1300 68 81 13
Rice University 37% 1530 79 93 14
University of Denver 52% 1290 57 72 15
University of Miami 39% 1360 58 73 15
University of Delaware 30% 1290 60 76 16
Southern Methodist University 39% 1320 58 74 16
University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 33% 1420 70 87 17
SUNY at Binghamton 32% 1350 61 78 17
Carnegie Mellon University 56% 1490 69 86 17
Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 86% 1420 64 82 18
University of Southern California 39% 1460 65 84 19
Case Western Reserve University 65% 1430 59 78 19
Stanford University 31% 1540 76 95 19
University of Connecticut 28% 1290 53 74 21
University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 43% 1400 61 82 21
University of Pittsburgh-Main Campus 36% 1330 52 73 21
Marquette University 39% 1300 57 78 21
University of California-Santa Cruz 27% 1270 48 70 22
Indiana University-Bloomington 27% 1240 50 72 22
University of Florida 32% 1360 54 79 25
University of Iowa 29% 1320 40 65 25
University of Maryland-College Park 40% 1390 54 79 25
Baylor University 34% 1310 49 74 25
Rutgers University-New Brunswick/Piscataway 30% 1310 47 73 26
University of California-Riverside 45% 1200 37 64 27
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University 53% 1290 52 79 27
University of Washington-Seattle Campus 34% 1320 48 75 27
University of California-Berkeley 32% 1450 61 89 28
University of California-Irvine 30% 1300 51 79 28
University of Colorado at Boulder 34% 1280 38 66 28
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities 31% 1360 32 61 29
University of Missouri-Columbia 35% 1300 40 69 29
Pennsylvania State University-Penn State Main Campus 42% 1300 56 85 29
The University of Tennessee 30% 1270 31 60 29
Auburn University Main Campus 45% 1230 33 63 30
University of California-Los Angeles 25% 1410 59 89 30
University of Georgia 30% 1330 45 75 30
Michigan State University 37% 1290 44 74 30
Yeshiva University 45% 1340 36 66 30
University of California-Santa Barbara 27% 1320 47 78 31
Clemson University 45% 1310 44 75 31
The University of Texas at Austin 36% 1350 46 77 31
Ohio State University-Main Campus 33% 1310 39 71 32
University of California-San Diego 45% 1370 53 86 33
Purdue University-Main Campus 44% 1250 37 70 33
University of Wisconsin-Madison 33% 1370 44 78 34
Iowa State University 46% 1350 31 66 35
Stevens Institute of Technology 88% 1360 36 73 37
University of California-Davis 31% 1300 43 81 38
Texas A & M University 40% 1290 37 77 40
Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus 86% 1400 34 77 43
Brigham Young University 31% 1350 31 78 47</p>
<p>I'm glad it provides some measure of people in programs that may take 4+ years, but I wonder a bit about the choices. It's interesting that it selects business students but not education students. On our campus, most business students blast out of here in a prompt fashion (except accounting grads who generally need the extra year) but education students, who are doing up to 3 semesters of students teaching, take more than 4. Maybe we're unusual in that regard. </p>
<p>Architecture is a 5 year program, too. It's not a real common major, but where there's an undergrad architecture program, I'd bet those students have an impact on time-to-degree numbers.</p>
<p>Well, I suppose we can nitpick our way over those things for a good 2-3 pages. :)</p>
<p>Lots more kids at publics are paying for a much higher proportion of their own college education and working. How many kida are working their way through Duke?</p>
<p>"Students at private schools seem to graduate sooner. I wonder why?"</p>
<ol>
<li>Availability of courses that they need to graduate. </li>
<li>Excellent financial aid that keeps them from having to take time off or go parttime in order to earn the money necessary to continue attending college.</li>
</ol>
<p>These statistics are not very telling about what is actually going on. It might be that students cannot get the courses they need at some schools or take a break for financial or academic reasons. It might also be that, increasingly, schools are offering 5 year programs, resulting in multiple degrees. If I had to guess, I'd say this last reason accounts for a lot of it. But without specific information from each school, you can't know this and the statistics can be very misleading unless you are just using them to figure out how long students tend to stick around. Now, if you were trying to figure out what barriers there are at a particular school to 4 year-graduation, what you want to know is how many students wanted to graduate in 4 years, but were unable to because they could not get the classes they needed. But this is not a statistic that, if even kept, is publicized.</p>
<p>By the way, there may also be students who graduate in less than 4 years because they come with a lot of credit and/or load up on courses.</p>
<p>Yes, the fact that many schools offer 5-year programs that give you two different types of Bachelor's degrees (i.e. BA and BMus or BA and BS or BA and BFA, etc) is a big factor.</p>
<p>Looking at the Georgia Tech numbers and knowing the program, there are a LOT of kids who will take five years due to the co-op program. OTOH, they get great jobs and make money to pay those tuition bills!</p>
<p>At Pitt the engineering school has a very good internship program and about 50% of the engrg students participate. They work a total of 3 semesters and alternate a semester of work with a semester of study, hence graduating in 5yrs on average. Pitt also encourages double majors (at least in the Honors College) and the engrg kids who double major will usually take 5yrs w/o interning. If they add a job to that it might take 6yrs. Of course, the jobs pay very well and that helps pay any extra tuition. Then they get good job offers for after grad, so the whole thing is not as frightening (to the parent) as it sounds when your kid first suggests it. (yikes!)</p>
<p>To the OP--those "extra years" do not cost $$$$$ if the student is in a co-op program. Same number of semesters of coursework, but extra time due to (paid) co-op jobs. </p>
<p>Plus they have valuable experience when they graduate!</p>
<p>mercymom--I would have loved it if my first two sons had done co-op, never mind the extra "time." They have had excellent summer jobs/internships, but I will be thrilled if son#3 decides to take 5 years and do co-op.</p>
<p>What this means is that the cost difference betwqeen publics and privates is not as large as you might think.</p>
<p>CountingDown-
I would think that Caltech and MIT grads also get great jobs but they graduate much faster. I would also think that the students at Caltech and MIT might do internships or co-op, at least in the summer. Is a required co-op actually a disadvantage?</p>
<p>mommusic-
Co-op also means one-two years lost earning power from a permanent job post-graduation.</p>
<p>collegehelp,
I don't know that MIT or Caltech have formal co-op programs. GT does, but it is not required. When my brother was at GT, one spent the first four trimesters taking core courses, and then could co-op one quarter, take classes the next. This was year-round and folks graduated in five years. </p>
<p>My brother didn't make it through their weeding process but several HS friends did co-op at Tech and were quite happy. (GT was known then, and accoridng to some reports around here, still is, known for letting kids sink or swim through the weeder classes without a lot of support.)</p>
<p>Co-oppers might not get to full-time work as quickly, but most of them got offers from their co-op employers upon graduation, and they graduated loan-free. For many, it is worth it.</p>
<p>The co-op program is a way to require that kids get some job experience before they graduate (and perhaps discover how much they really like their major after all.) </p>
<p>The son of some friends of ours managed to graduate from an engineering program without ever getting a summer job in his field. He may be smart, but has no experience whatsoever. I am waiting to see if he will get a job in his field or perhaps go to graduate school for something else.</p>
<p>Sorry. I meant to say co-op when I said intern. It sounded wrong to me, but I couldn't remember why.</p>
<p>Anyway, I don't see a year spent in a co-op job as lost earning power from a permanent job post grad at all. It certainly doesn't work like that at U Pittsburgh. </p>
<p>For one thing, the students are considered actual employees of the company. They work full time for full time pay and benefits. At Pitt both sides commit for all 3 semesters and the student accumulates time spent for the purposes of company benefits. One guy qualified for an employee school subsidy that helped pay for his senior year. The employer offered him a permanent job and his seniority on the job counted the three semesters already spent with the company. Then they offered to let him go to Pitt for a masters in engrg and the company paid for it. When that was done he got a promotion and an even better job and a raise. How can you see anything wrong with that?</p>