<p>Newsweek's article this week (dated 10/26/09) covers the pros and cons of whether a standard program at college could be/should be three years. Are kids ready after three? Many schools report graduation rates "after 6 years". Do kids need that many? What do you think? (I'd add snippets of the article, but my DS3 is reading it now.)</p>
<p>I finished in 4. I could’ve definitely finished in 3.5, maybe in 3. But that would’ve been facilitated by the 22 AP credits that I came in with, which was over a semester’s worth of credits.</p>
<p>I’m not sure that graduating in 3 years would’ve been really conceivable without any AP credits, unless the student is willing to load up on courses each semester. And I don’t really advise that - it creates so much stress and ruins the college experience, unless the student has amazing time management skills.</p>
<p>On the other hand, as much as I loved college, I don’t think that 6 years is advisable either. Those are usually students that can’t decide on a major and flip flop around 5 different things until they finally figure out their plan. I do have friends that switched majors about 4 times and still graduated in 4 years, though.</p>
<p>A caveat to all this- it really depends on the major that the student is pursuing. And like AP credits, there are variables like summer classes that could shorten the time between when the student enters college and receives his/her diploma.</p>
<p>I hope some of this helped?</p>
<p>Smith, alma mater, requires that traditional students finish in four. You can do less, but they usually only let you shorten your time by one semester (i.e., you can graduate at the end of fall semester of senior year, instead of waiting till the end of spring semester).</p>
<p>I don’t think there’s really one standard of how long college should take. It depends on what credits you’re allowed to bring in (not every college accepts all AP credits), how the college or uni is set up, whether or not you change majors halfway through, etc. As long as you accomplish your goal and get your diploma, the time it takes is kind of secondary.</p>
<p>There is pressure mounting for state universities to go this route, at least for some majors. Don’t be fooled: This is all about schools raising their tuitions far beyond that of inflation because there was easy credit available in the pre-credit crisis era. Middle-class families can no longer afford four years at state school, but the education professionals did not care, because we were all expected to mortgage our houses. Welcome to 2009: the equity is no longer in thehouse and the lending rules have tightened. What is the answer? “Well, college should only take three years anyway.” That is there way of cutting the cost by 25% - about how much they raised tuition rates over inflation over the past few years.</p>
<p>Colleges report 6 year rates because that is now closer to the average. In this case the question isn’t really how long SHOULD it take (it was 4 years in my college, no variation unless you took a “stop-out” year) but how long DOES it take. The extra two years generally takes into account the people who change schools or fields of study.</p>
<p>There are also some majors (depending on the school) that require more than 4 years.</p>
<p>The article, written by Lamar Alexander, and a subsequent one about “What’s College For Anyway?” discuss various points, like the costs of going to school, the (out of date) school schedule, as well as other options–like online. Comparing US university/colleges to the “Big Three” in Detroit, Alexander points to the perils of being out-of-step with the needs of today. It’s certainly a hot button today (see lots of discussions just within the post on UC school).</p>
<p>Well, if students attended college on something more akin to a work schedule, finishing in three years wouldn’t be a significant challenge. Having school start in mid-August, feature a full week off at Thanksgiving, three to four weeks off at Christmas, a week for spring break, and then finish in early May wastes a huge amount of time. We’ve socialized college students to expect this kind of schedule, but it doesn’t need to be that way. Using even two of the summers for full semester classes still leaves one other summer for internships or work experiences. Didn’t many colleges tighten up schedules like this during World War II?</p>
<p>The article also mentions Dartmouth’s requirement: to live on campus during the summer of your sophomore year. Hummm…not such a bad idea, although I think the summertime is a great opportunity to take on new possibilities that you can’t do during the school year: internships and research.</p>
<p>It is personal decision, unless there are specific reguirements. Most engineering programs reguire 5 years. My D is in a program that does not allow to spend less than 4 years in undergrad (5 for engineering majors) even if they have enough credits to graduate, which most of them do.</p>
<p>My son is in an accelerated program and the undergrad portion is only 3 years. He only gets to pick one elective during those 3 years. Every year is very regimented. The good news is that it saves us at least a year of tuition (2-3 years compared to many schools), but leaves no room for exploration. While most kids are trying new things, he’s not able to. He made his decision early and has stuck to it. I’m grateful he still likes his major.</p>
<p>zweebop – Dartmouth’s summer requirement is accompanied by a requirement to take one regular semester off during one’s sophomore or junior year. So students can pursue internships and research then, and with less competition from other students.</p>
<p>The Dartmouth Plan was an innovative adaptation when Dartmouth finally went co-ed in the mid-70s. It made a commitment to its alumni not to reduce the number of men it educated (a commitment it later broke, when no one cared so much anymore), and it didn’t have the money to build a lot of new dorms and classrooms to handle the increase in headcount caused by admitting women without admitting fewer men. So they came up with a plan to maximize existing resources by using them year-round, while only permitting 7/8ths of the students to be enrolled at any one time.</p>
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<p>I don’t think it’s really a question of shoehorning existing college curricula into three years. It’s perfectly possible to have a three-year undergraduate standard – that’s what the Europeans do. But the expectation there is that you have a major on Day 1 and you stick to it, which is very different from what American universities do – especially the elite ones. The real question is whether what top colleges do now is an expensive, inefficient, upper-class luxury.</p>
<p>We are not paying tuition anyway because of Merit $$. But there is additional year of living expenses, some of which are also covered. D had a chance to choose between programs. She did not want accelerated because she wanted regular college experience with minors, job, volunteering, sorority, etc. Others wanted accelerated for their own personal reasons. Her choice of accelerated program was not cheaper, the yearly tuition was adjusted upward for more credit hours and some of it would not be covered by Merit $$. So, the decision about number of years in UG is very personal.</p>
<p>I went over our son’s projected Spring schedule with him yesterday. If he can get into one particular course, then he would be one credit shy of graduating in three years - he could do that one credit in the short winter-session. This one course in his major that he needs isn’t taught in the Spring though - the professor would have to agree to teach it to him in kind of an independent mode. The course seldom has many students even when it is taught as it is a theoretical course and most of his peers take practical courses that will improve their job prospects.</p>
<p>He’s asked the professor about doing the course but I think that it is unlikely - if that’s the case, then he can add a fun course (like math or physics), and then take a major course in the fall and four other courses for fun and graduate in 3.5 years.</p>
<p>It just struck me as strange that he could get a degree in three years and that we’d be done. It took me 12 years to get my BA which is a big contrast. At any rate, I think it more likely that he will do 3.5 years.</p>
<p>I think that four years is a good way to go if we could get it there. Many majors have flowcharts to get the degree and it can be difficult to stage the lower levels if time is tight.</p>
<p>Europeans are often older when they start university. Germans have 13 years of schooling, the British often (usually?) take a gap year. I think the real problem is that for many students freshman year is when they learn a lot of stuff they should have learned in high school.</p>
<p>OTOH, what about the scheduling problem students are having at some schools (there’s a thread somewhere) so they can’t even finish in 4 years?</p>
<p>Since D cannot graduate earlier she will have major and 2 minors in 4 years, despite the fact that she cannot take more than 15 hours in whole junior year because of MCAT prep class that she started taking, which is of course non-credit and takes 4-8 hours weekly + homework.</p>
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<p>Who gets a week off for Thanksgiving? I get 3 days + weekend.</p>
<p>A coworker from Germany said that students decide what they want to do in life at younger ages. The advantage of the US system is that the decision can be put off for a few years if money is available to support that choice.</p>
<p>Here is an interesting article from Newsweek on the 3 year college program.</p>
<p>[How</a> to Save 25 Percent on College Tuition | Newsweek Education | Newsweek.com](<a href=“http://www.newsweek.com/id/218261]How”>How to Save 25 Percent on College Tuition - Newsweek)</p>