We budgeted for 4 years. S1 stuck to it and finished in 4 yrs.
S2 had a rough first semester and ended up retaking some classes in summer school. It was cheaper than an regular full load semester. He managed to graduate on time except for a required internship that he completed in the summer after his senior year. We had to pay summer schools fees for it because it was part of his curriculum requirement.
We paid for the four year plan. Fully. We paid tuition, room, board, fees, cell phone and transportation. Our kids paid their own discretionary costs, and bought their own books. One had a $10,000 a year scholarship, and the other had a $6000 a year award.
We were very clear that anything above and beyond the four years would be funded NOT by us.
The only exception we would have made (and almost had to do) was for reduced course load due to illness. We would have paid for additional coursework for that.
One of our kids decided to pick up a double major which required full time enrollment one full summer. That kid paid for those courses.
Both graduated on the four year plan.
We were full pay for D and she entered college a with a couple of AP credits that the school recognized. Our plan was limited to four years, but allowed for summer courses in order to have a cushion of credits. She took one course at a local-to-home college and took a short summer course in Europe for credit through her school. Additionally she could have received one credit for her internship between Junior and Senior years (but we weren’t concerned about the credit). She finished in four years with a major, minor, a couple extra credits and a job before graduation.
Thanks again for all the great advice! Okay, so a lot of you CC parents still have kids who are making it work in the traditional 4 years because you’ve made it clear to them that 4 years of funding was all they were getting (barring illness).
I’m going to make sure that we look beyond rankings/hype to make sure that the Mech Eng college my son chooses has a good grad rate and accepts his AP/dual credits. We have 5 kids and are probably in the donut hole re: FA prospects, so we need to make sure things don’t get out of control financially over the next 10 years or so (after which we will hopefully be retiring).
@lizardly Yes, I would love for him to take a CC class or two during the next two summers to get ahead, along with AP and dual enrollment.
@zekesima - Especially with 5 kids to educate, do look at schools that might offer merit aid.
I was planning to pay for four years. I guess I was just assuming my son would graduate with an engineering degree in four years (or more if he does a co-op, but then those semesters we would not be paying tuition), and if he isn’t then it would be because of some kind of serious problem. And if that did happen, then I can’t anticipate now what we would do.
But are my expectations way off? I am just wondering why it is that engineering students are said to often take more than four years? Is it because students are not able to handle the rigor of the course work, and therefore either take a lighter load some semesters, or drop classes and retake them? I’m wondering if this is something that can be anticipated and planned for/avoided.
@doschicos I am taking a hard look at the schools that offer automatic merit awards for stats, like UA (thanks to mom2collegekids’ advocacy 
Let me clarify my answer. We said we would pay for four years of college study. It could happen over five years, or ten years…but we only would fund four years of the costs.
So, if our kid had done a co-op, or taken a year off to work…that time would not have “counted” in our count.
And some schools guarantee 4 yr graduation.
This is the key point.
It seems that for some career path, only school work is not good enough today. The students are expected to have something additional that can not possibly be learned in the class room and even in the school setting.
Some majors at some schools (at both the UG and the grad school levels) have already included co-op components as parts of their graduation requirement. It could help boost the major/school’s prestige at the student family’s dime, why not?!
For some top MBA programs, the perspective applicants have to demonstrate that they have had successfully landed on good career-track jobs before they will be admitted! They do not want to take in students who could be “losers” in the job market.
For some career track, if the students do not have some “required” ECs, they are automatically disqualified.
We paid for 4 years. (But a gap year after college and before grad school.)
Probably one of the more common causes of late graduation is that the student is underprepared for college. Many students need remedial course work, have difficulty handling full course loads (15-16 credits in the usual credit hour system), or fail some courses and need to repeat them or make up the credits. Those who must work to earn money to pay for school may find that work needs prevent taking full course loads.
Of course, this is unlikely to be the case for many students here going in with 4.0 HS GPAs, 2250+ SAT and 34+ ACT scores, several useful 5 scores on AP tests, etc. and generous financial aid grants from a highly selective school or a large merit scholarship that eliminates the need to work during school. But the 3.0-3.3 student with 1650 SAT and 24 ACT, no useful AP test scores, and at the margins of affordability requiring substantial work earnings may be more of a late graduation risk. If you believe the estimates at http://www.heri.ucla.edu/GradRateCalculator.php , the former student probably has about a 75% chance of 4 year graduation, while the latter student probably has about a 30% chance of 4 year graduation.
Parents of B students may want to plan for the likelihood of extra semesters in their budgeting for college contributions. I.e. if the planned contribution is $X, tell the B student $X/5 (instead of $X/4) per year, or $X*(4/5) total, to ensure a buffer for an extra semester or two.
If the co ops are real paying co ops, the kids should be using that money for tuition anyway.
If you meet conditions like not needing remedial courses, taking full course loads, following the course plan for your major, not changing majors, etc… I.e. the guarantee is only against school-caused delays in graduation (which are probably less common than claimed); student-caused delays in graduation are still possible (and likely) under such graduation guarantee pledges. For example, several CSUs have four year graduation pledges, but their actual four year graduation rates are quite low (under 30%).
This is probably a realistic expectation for a student who was not a top end student in high school, particularly in a high workload major (e.g. anything with lots of courses with labs, arts studio, music performance, computer programming, big projects). I.e. if your student is closer to a 3.0 GPA in mostly regular courses in high school, s/he is more likely to need more than 8 semesters than if your student is closer to a 4.0 GPA in mostly the most rigorous courses in high school.
One other thing to consider: check the possible colleges English and math placement guidelines. If they indicate that the student will need to take remedial courses before taking the English and/or math courses needed to graduate or for his/her possible major(s), then it is more likely that s/he will need an extra semester. This is especially true if English and/or math is a key prerequisite for other courses in his/her possible major(s). For example, an engineering major who is placed into a math course below calculus 1 will almost certainly need more than 8 semesters.
I’d say it’s a good mix of those reasons. I’ve seen major core courses trip a lot of students up and cause them to be a semester or two behind because they didn’t receive the necessary score to move on. I know a handful of students that are taking light loads (12 credits) who are not going to graduate within four years, but they’ve planned accordingly. Personally, I’m graduating within four years with a degree in engineering and there is not a large rush or struggle to gaining my credits in time.
The student could take a summer math class and be put back on track.
Re: engineering student placed in remedial math course below calculus 1
Unless s/he takes the remedial math course in the pre-frosh summer, starting in a math course below calculus 1 will throw off more than just the math sequence. Physics will be delayed by a semester, as will any engineering courses that depend on physics or math prerequisites. That may be too difficult to catch up in one summer.
It is good to know that so many kids are still finishing engineering degrees in 4 years in spite of the trend mentioned in the article. I’ve read so much (including here on CC) about the engineering dropout and low grad rate problems that I was beginning to wonder whether an engineering degree was attainable in 4 years. My son does very well in honors math and science courses (he doesn’t try as hard in honors/AP English and Social Studies, though, but does what it takes to get Bs in those classes). Hopefully, his prep in STEM classes will translate into a solid foundation for success (read: degree on time) in ME.
Yes, it will throw off the sequence, but I’d say the majority of the time a student can be put back on track. Of course, there are schools with unforgiving sequences, but remediation is not and end all and alternatives should definitely be looked into.
DS finished up his second year of engineering. He just started his first semester of a 3 semester co-op rotation. It is not possible for him to graduate in 4 years with this co-op . So it will be 4 1/2 years although really only 4 more semesters of actual school. However his school requires 132 credits for an EE degree. Which means he would have had to take 16 or 17 credits each semester if he hadn’t come in with AP credit. IMO for an engineering degree I think 4 1/2 is more reasonable unless they have a lot of AP credit.