<p>I have often wondered why the publics in my state have 5 classes/semester while the private colleges we know of tend to require only 4. Five classes is a lot to handle at once, and also a lot to manage to schedule.</p>
<p>Schools with 5 classes per semester would typically consider each class to be “smaller” (e.g. 3 credits instead of 4 credits) than schools with 4 classes per semester.</p>
<p>At Texas state schools, if you have more than 150 hours, you have to pay OOS tuition for the rest. It’s a penalty for changing majors and allegedly, promotes “on time” graduation. Of course, that also means that if you have gone full time for 5 years and are short some graduation requirements, the state is making it less likely you will graduate by upping the price to finish.</p>
<p>I have a friend who will be attending for five years just so she can complete divisional requirements (or whatever her school calls classes you have to take outside your degree area) as her programme is 120 credits on it’s own (out of 130 required to graduate; she’ll end up with 160-ish after divisional requirements)
Another will take five years because she has two honours degrees, she should graduate in three according to normal expectations (it’s in Quebec and she’s from Quebec and thus went to CEGEP, meaning a Bachelors should take three years).
Yet another will take six years because of her two honours and two minors.
None of these people are the type to slack off (ok, one is a huge procrastinator), and only one has had to retake a class, and that’s because she couldn’t get into the required lab that went with the lecture.
There are also a number of people at my school who will take and extra year to graduate because they are part of the student representative council, which requires you to be a part time student so that you have enough time to devote to the student government and not fail your classes.
So clearly, it’s not a problem that people are graduating in more that four years/whatever the norm is; the problem may be why. If you’re graduating “late” because you have multiple majors or honours with different requirements or had to attend pat time for whatever reason, that’s not an issue. If you’re graduating late because you weren’t prepared or slacked off and failed a number of classes, that is. If you’re graduating late because divisional requirements need to be done on top of a major that has a time limit to take certain classes and is a huge number of credits, that’s also a problem, but it’s the school’s problem (they really should waive the divisional requirements in that case). </p>
<p>Between limited class sizes and required classes to graduate, you could be on schedule and then literally have one course in one semester screw up your whole “4 year plan”.</p>
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<p>150 hours is 30 more than the typical 120 needed to graduate. This means that such a student has taken at least 30 hours of courses that are not applicable to either his/her major or general education requirements (possibly even more than that, since many majors require less than 120 hours to complete all of the subject requirements for the major and general education, leaving the rest for free electives).</p>
<p>Of course, changing majors late in the game makes the student more likely to run into this limit, since that could mean that previously taken courses are cannot be applied to subject requirements.</p>
<p>But note that this Texas policy is more lenient than at some other public schools, which prevent fall or spring enrollment if the student exceeds the limit on credit hours. Other policies used for students with large amounts of credit but cannot graduate include allowing registering only for courses that fulfill specific subject requirements remaining for the major or general education requirements. Obviously, the public schools want to prevent any single student from hogging too much enrollment space or in-state subsidy, since their mission is to be accessible to more in-state students – if more students hang around for too long, that means that the school can admit fewer students.</p>
<p>But it is likely that most late graduations are due to taking light course loads, like 12 hours instead of 15 or 16 each semester. The reasons for this vary, from needing to work to earn money for school, or not being strong enough students to handle a 15 or 16 hour course load (which is likely why less selective schools tend to have worse graduation rates). Needing remedial course work (a depressingly common situation (even highly selective schools like Princeton offer remedial courses), often revealed by colleges’ placement testing just before the student’s first semester) can also contribute to delayed graduation.</p>
The vast majority of college students aren’t completing their degrees on time, largely due to a lack of guidance and too many choices.
How did you come to this conclusion? Any college you attend should have a catalog that tells you exactly what courses you need to get the degree you want. Furthermore, oftentimes that catalog will include a 4 year schedule plan that tells you what to do if you can’t figure it out yourself. If you’re still confused you can talk to a counselor.
Of course, many students choose or change major relatively late, without having taken enough of the new major’s prerequisites to graduate on time.
There is no reason why a College student cannot complete their degree in 4 years. The realities are a vast number of our College students with AP credits and/or Dual Enrollment credits can complete their degree in 2 to 3.5 years, yet consciously decides to prolong their “College Experience” to the 4 year timeline. There are a significant number of students in the State of Florida that have accumulated close to 60 credits of Dual enrollment credits, yet chose to extend the time on campus to the full 4-years because they want to take the full four years to get their degree, negating the spirit behind the introduction of Dual Enrollment. These kids are in no hurry to finish their degree early and enter the workforce.
The state of North Carolina is in the process of introducing a new program where High School Seniors with a minimum GPA of 3.5 are being offered free Community College Tuition with the hope that more College bound Students attend a Community College for two years. The impetus here is that the subsidized cost to the State of North Carolina is significantly less for a College Student attending a Community College than the University of North Carolina System ($4,401 versus $13,419).
…Encouraging high-achieving students to take their first two years of classes at community colleges would save the state money, Ellmore said. The state share of a community college student’s cost is $4,401 per year on average, as compared with the average state subsidy in the University of North Carolina system, which is $13,419, according to figures from the legislature’s nonpartisan fiscal staff."…
Read more at http://www.wral.com/free-community-college-tuition-for-high-achievers-clears-committee/14520456/#KF6fJZusKgcAJgx0.99
The quicker we get our College students through the system, the lower the overall cost to the State and more students that can enter the Higher Education System. I think we will see more students being channeled into CC and reserving the latter two years of the State Universities for Juniors and Seniors.
Since my husband and I are footing the bill for our daughter’s education, we really paid attention to the four year grad rates at schools. We opted to pay a bit more (not a lot) for a private school with a very high four year grad rate rather than attend a public university where odds are good that it would require five years. We think we’ll be money ahead.
I’ll give you this in nearly all cases, though I will throw in a caveat about programs that are intentionally longer (which cause problems for some students, who get a 4-year scholarship and end up having a fantastically expensive time finishing up their, e.g., architecture program).
Actually, there are many part time or non-traditional students whose other obligations in work and/or family prevent them from taking full course loads each semester, so they need more than eight semesters to complete all of their bachelor’s degree requirements.
In practice, large amounts of AP credit that may cover frosh-level course work, but not specifically chosen for major or general education requirements, may not reduce the time to graduation by as much as the number of credit units make it seem like. Also, many frosh do not have large amounts of AP credit.
I’m a nursing student and will be in undergrad for only 4 years since my school was direct admit 
He is most certainly not a year behind his high school classmates. Most of his high school classmates probably aren’t even in college? I’m currently a 21-year-old college junior, and I’m nowhere near the oldest in my year. Many of my classmates are 22 and 23. Look at these statistics, and you’ll how false that statement is. http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_104.20.asp http://nces.ed.gov/programs/digest/d13/tables/dt13_326.10.asp http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/02/education/most-college-students-dont-earn-degree-in-4-years-study-finds.html http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2013/aug/11/ron-johnson/average-college-degree-takes-six-years-us-sen-ron-/