<p>"At most public universities, only 19 percent of full-time students earn a bachelor’s degree in four years, the report found. Even at state flagship universities — selective, research-intensive institutions — only 36 percent of full-time students complete their bachelor’s degree on time." ...</p>
<p>What is this “on time” business? College isn’t a race. Not everyone is able to take a full load every semester for a variety of reasons. </p>
<p>I wish we would stop calling it “on time” as though those who do not graduate in four years or less are somehow lagging behind. They’re not. There are many different paths. </p>
<p>My college is a five-year program. I’m graduating on time after five years, which totals 8 semesters of classes.</p>
<p>The issue with people graduating in more than 4 years is not the time scale itself; it usually means more than 8 full-time semesters, which means much higher costs to students.</p>
<p>This brings up the question of WHY it’s taking longer. Are students not prepared for college? Are they changing majors and need more courses to graduate? Are they taking the wrong courses? Are the courses they need not readily available because of funding limitations? Do they not have the money to go to school full time for 4 years and have to switch to part time? There are a lot of different reasons why students are taking longer than 4 years to graduate, and I think it warrants further investigation.</p>
<p>I feel like there is a negative stigma associated with graduating later which doesn’t entirely make sense to me because in a lot of cases, people take more semesters to graduate because they are working to pay their way through college. I’d rather see a student take on a few extra semesters if it means they’ll be graduating with minimal debt, rather than stick to the conventional 8 semesters and use loans in lieu of their employment to fund their degree. </p>
<p>Obviously that isn’t the only scenario that leads to later graduation, but it does make up a considerable portion, and I think it’s unfair to portray later graduation as being entirely bad when in reality, people are just prioritizing their life to fit their individual circumstances. </p>
<p>I’m glad I graduated in four years because college is expensive. From my perspective it’s more about students changing their majors multiple times and having to take a step back to get the perquisites for classes later on. Also students are working dead end jobs to pay for classes so they have to take a lighter class load to fit in hours for work. </p>
<p>Actually, most students who work while in school (to try to help out with tuition) will end up paying more than they would if they didn’t worked and graduated in four semesters. Holding down a full-time job while in college only works if you can take night/online courses and a full-time job can be hard enough to find with a college degree. Hourly wages are also nothing compared to the cost of tuition.</p>
<p>@aigiqinf - I feel as though most students who are holding down a full time job to pay for school wouldn’t be attending a particularly pricey university, and they most likely wouldn’t be in dorms - so they’d be attending a far cheaper public university/college. A lot of these students are also older and may have families, so the employment they have would be different from an 18 year old looking for full time work straight out of high school because they might have more experience in general, or they were employed well before the recession, etc.
These public commuter schools typically have an array of night and online courses to accommodate a large non-traditional population who work, have familial obligations, etc - and the tuition is usually a fraction of a private university or even the state flagship. An individual working as a secretary, a police officer (I have a police officer in one of my Theology classes), a tradesman, etc would probably not have terrible difficulty affording a tuition bill of 3 or 4k (or less) realistically. </p>
<p>You also have to consider money that isn’t being made. If you don’t work in college and graduate in 8 semesters, that’s 4 years of income that was never earned, assuming you’d be able to get full time employment. That is another cost on top of the tuition being paid. </p>
<p>I’m not saying delayed graduation is ideal - I’m saying that for many, it is their only option or their best option, and there shouldn’t be a stigma attached to it. People who value education value those who seek it out regardless of their circumstances. </p>
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<p>Let’s not pretend that there is not a 4 year model that most schools have set up and most majors are designed around. Quite a few schools have something in their handbooks/catalogs/guides that say something like “A normal course load is considered to be 15 hours per semester. 120 hours is the required minimum for most majors, resulting in graduation in 8 semesters of full time work, or 4 years.” Quite a few scholarships have a 4 year or 8 semester clock on them. And of course there is also the fact that the government tracks 4 year graduation rates as the minimum, while also tracking 5 and 6 year graduation rates. But they don’t track 3 year rates, so by default 4 year is set as the minimum convention. To pretend this isn’t the “understood” standard is a bit silly.</p>
<p>Having said that, I understand your point and heartily support it with the caveats of the scholarship clock I mentioned, along with the additional costs of taking extra time to graduate if the reason is that the student couldn’t get all of their required courses because of course availability. I know some schools have waived tuition if a student couldn’t finish in the “normal” time because of this, although there are of course other costs. But those things aside, I agree there is nothing magic about graduating in 4 years, if money isn’t an issue. My D is a good example. She was on one of these 8 semester scholarships (full tuition) at a private school. Then she studied in Beijing her entire 3rd year courtesy of the Chinese government, so she took a leave of absence from her school to preserve her scholarship. Upon returning she had 4 semesters left of the scholarship, obviously, and used 3 of them, graduating in 4.5 years chronologically. She could have stayed for the full 5 had she wanted, or in point of fact could have graduated in 3 years if she had skipped going to Beijing because of AP credits and always taking more than 15 hours a semester. 4 years is not a magic time frame once you free yourself from the conventional thinking, if you can afford to.</p>
<p>At a lot of flagships, changing majors midway through can add semesters when students lack the foundational coursework in their new program. And sometimes getting into the additional required classes is easier said than done. I think that’s part of the reason why there isn’t such a stigma about the length of time to graduate at many public universities–people understand that there is no one right way. Of course, this also goes for kids who have to work during college and take a lighter courseload than those who don’t.</p>
<p>Several of the state flagships in my area are now offering “four-year guarantees” which I think are designed to appeal to families who fear the prospect of paying for an extra semester or two and haven’t budgeted for it. They’ll allow you to substitute courses if you can’t get into a specific one required for your major, or allow you to take classes over the summer for free.</p>
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<p>However, those who have to work a lot while in school may not have much of a choice, if they do not have the money up front and/or sufficient scholarships and/or sufficient financial aid grants to be able to afford the cost of attendance. Yes, attending full time and graduating in 8 or fewer semesters is the preferable choice in many cases, but many students’ cost constraints mean that this choice is not available to them.</p>
<p>My son is in a 5 year program, due to co-op requirements (Computer Science.) So what if he’s a year behind his HS classmates? He’ll be graduating in May with money in the bank and real-life job experience. </p>
<p>The thing about this business of extending undergrad time to include real world work experience is that is what the first year of actual post undergrad work is, I see why co ops etc work for kids who need to pay for school as they go, but kids who take 5/6/7 yrs to finish their degree due to various internships etc are just delaying their trajectory of increasing wages once qualified and in the workplace. With engineering type degrees it is an apprenticeship type model, with unqualified people doing on the job training for low wages instead of getting their degree over ASAP. The UK gets these kids out in 3 yrs, 4 yr degrees include a masters. Those kids can still do gap years or study abroad but not at the cost of their undergrad time limit. 4 year guarantee is incredibly attractive to me as a parent. </p>
<p>I don’t think it really matters when you graduate (Unless it takes you 15 years to get a bachelors. Then you just need to get your act together and decide on a major/pass your classes!)</p>
<p>Personally, it matters to me because my scholarship money runs out after 4 years. But if I didn’t have that restriction, and especially if I paid by the credit hour, it wouldn’t matter. I definitely think it just depends on what is right for the student. I know my brother is putting himself through college by working sans debt in 4 years, but I don’t think that I could handle the stress load of that.</p>
<p>Alfonsia, your new, wet-behind-the-ears college graduate will be competing for their first job with people who have a degree as well as experience on their resumes.</p>
<p>And “engineering type” co-ops get paid incredibly well (up to $25/hr) and do REAL work, not make-work or typing/filing. And the degree doesn’t cost more because it’s 5 years instead of 4 (you don’t pay tuition for co-op semesters, only a nominal reg fee.)</p>
<p>Mom, You lose money because you are working for co op rates rather than getting your degree over with and onto grad pay rates, I ain’t buying what you are selling LOL. But plenty of others are and if it is to pay for school, then it is all good. Take aim at the long game, plenty of internships can be done over summer rather than in term time. Your grad will be wet behind the ears whatever, in the new grad pile. Love that you don’t have to pay for school when you are, you know, not at school. Of course it costs you more if you put off being paid real engineer rates, if you are not paying off loans, if you delay entering the workforce and getting your benefits and pension plans etc. </p>
<p>Co-op serves a couple of purposes. It’s not just about money (though that’s where Northeastern’s co-op program started). It’s about getting experience that will help you figure out what type of work you want to do before you have a 4-year degree in it. And it gives you more real-work experience than you get with internships, which makes it a lot easier to get a very well-paid job straight out of college. If you use co-op well, it need not lead to a loss in career earnings, and can help you into a career that will make you happier.</p>
<p>Right, well prepped kids should be able to do coops in the 4 yrs anyway. I get that as being a real benefit as long as they timeline is maintained. </p>
<p>@Alfonsia The reason people want to get internships and forgo a semester or two while they are in school is because thats the only way to get a decent job after you graduate. No one cares that you have a degree (engineering might be the exception but even thats going away.) if you have no experience. My dad is an engineer and the recent grads whose resumes automatically get tossed in the trash are the ones who either had too low of a gpa or the ones who had no work experience even if they graduated in 4 years. All the people I know who recently graduated (June 2014) and didn’t work in something that was related to their field are now working at jobs that they could have gotten right out of high school. </p>
<p>A bit of a discordant note: I’m faculty at a college that has, depending on the details of how you measure it, one of the lowest 4-year graduation rates of all non-profit colleges in the country. (Our 6- and 8-year rates are notably better—we have a lot of students who go part-time for a while due to financial pressures.) There’s been some pressure from legislators and administrators to work on making sure more students pass classes and complete their degrees in 4 years. This is all well and good—but if the object is just to make sure students pass and get degrees in 4 years, how is that any different than being a diploma mill?</p>
<p>Remember that part of the reason students take classes is to determine whether they can demonstrate that they’ve acquired knowledge or understanding or some other skill. Some proportion of students, for whatever reason, won’t do this successfully in one or more of their classes—and that will increase their time to degree. It’s baked into the program.</p>
<p>Perhaps more useful in terms of how well the school does is to compare graduation rates in the context of student academic credentials on entry.</p>
<p>Graduation rates can also be counted by number of academic years’ worth the school terms attended, rather than calendar years, for full time students.</p>