Shouldn’t we ask the question why it takes a student longer on average to graduate college now when the average student took more AP courses in high school? Have those AP courses done what they’re supposed to do?
Citation for this claim? This seems to be the opposite of what Graduation rate from first institution attended for first-time, full-time bachelor's degree-seeking students at 4-year postsecondary institutions, by race/ethnicity, time to completion, sex, control of institution, and percentage of applications accepted: Selected cohort entry years, 1996 through 2014 shows for 4-year and 6-year college graduation rates from 1996 to 2014 entry.
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Here’s what Coursera says on its website (with citations):
One of their citations is:
I have no evidence for this, but my gut thinking is it has something to do with maybe more optiond being available and changes in direction during the 4 years? Again, I have no basis for this. I’ve just noticed a trend of schools offering things like design your own major - and maybe more pursuit of double major or minor interdisciplinary. I’m not sure if that is a big change. Also possibly coops? I don’t remember that as being part of curriculum in my day but internships were separate summer pursuits. Now some schools have coop semesters built into plan.
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Where in the cited pages is there evidence for this claim?
The citations all support the following part, but not the former part.
Why do people make an argument based on anything other than primary data. For that matter, what does length of time to graduation have to do with this topic?
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This appears to be a common theme…
Same reason Physics C has a much higher pass rate than Physics 1
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It still can at many colleges.
Though many of the very selective private colleges many students (and parents) here chase and discuss severely restrict use of AP credits. My kids all had usable scores on anywhere from 8-13 AP tests but they all went (or are going) to)colleges that only let them use 2-4 of them, regardless of score.
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Interesting. Our school district weights AP courses higher than dual credit and honors. Class rank is based on weighted GPA. To get in the top 10% for auto admit to our state public universities (top 6% for UT) students really need to take quite a few AP courses offered and do very well in them. (Texas)
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Could you share a link to that data?
I think there’s a few misnomers with APs.
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It depends on the score - not all schools accept or not accept at certain scores - so taking the class, in and of itself, doesn’t get you ahead.
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For some majors, they may help eliminate classes but the requirements are so rigid, they don’t help reduce the time…engineering comes to mind.
Then you have the other culprits - kids couldn’t get the classes they needed to graduate on time and more.
One of my kids went in as a sophomore and still took four years. The other had 30 credits but I think was given only 9 to use - so that’s another thing - some classes may count for the same class in college.
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But is this often due to students avoiding the 8am classes?
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Sometimes yes, sometimes no. The student has to make a choice. I’d imagine - but can’t speak for each kid - that given the choice of 8a or missing requirements, most would choose the 8a.
Another culprit could be - they don’t offer a required class.
The data that @ucbalumnus sites in post 2 seems to be pretty clear that students are graduating a bit earlier (or at least going longer than 4 or 5 years less often) than they used to (for the years included in the study, with a clear if slow trend). I wonder how much of this trend is AP credits and how much comes from some other cause. It also seems clear from this data and from quite a few other sources that it is very common for students to take more than 4 years to graduate.
There is also the question of whether there is anything wrong with this? I suppose that this might depend upon what the student wants to do, why they take more than 4 years, and how the finances work out.
One thing that is not clear to me from any of the data that I have seen is how coops fit into this. There is “number of calendar years from start to graduation” versus “number of semesters actually studying prior to graduation”. Coops would appear to increase one of these, but not increase the other (I am a fan of coops). Taking time off to earn money or to figure out what you really want to do might have a similar impact.
Changes of major and dual degrees might be another issue. Changing majors seems to be quite common.
Way back when I was in high school the best local public school (which was McGill) was both very academically demanding and very affordable (in-province). Some students could afford to go 5 years because it just did not cost much. Given how demanding the classes were, I was told that it was reasonably common for students to just take fewer classes at once and intentionally take one extra year. When I was in graduate school a few students intentionally took one extra quarter again to just allow them to stretch out the academically demanding classes. As long as the student is okay with this and the person paying (often parents) is okay with this I do not see any problem with it. This is not a race.
One daughter went into university with two classes worth of AP credits (not really all that much these days), and then picked up credit for the equivalent of four or five more classes over the summers (an exchange to a different university, a field course, and independent research). She intentionally made an effort to avoid graduating early. The other daughter went in with somewhat more AP credits but again did not want to graduate early. One issue was to spread out the demanding premed classes (pre-vet for her, but the same classes). Another issue was that she ended up with enough credits to almost get two degrees (the second degree required one more class, while working, during the following year). I am not sure that having two bachelor’s degrees makes much difference, but she wanted to do it and could do it (and still stayed within budget).
I also see the issue with course sequences taking a certain amount of calendar time. Again a change in major can impact this.
To me this is not a race. If the student is gaining and growing as a person from what they are learning in university, and if the parents can afford to keep paying without the student taking on too much debt, then taking a bit more time just gives the student time to get a bit more out of it so long as they want to do it.
But I think that eventually most students will get tired of being an undergraduate student and will want to get it done already and get on with their life.
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It’s likely public vs. private too…I surmise more kids go part time at publics - or they come and go meaning some leave or take less classes and work.
I’m sure there’s a wealth component too that factors in - if you’re more affluent, you’re likely to finish sooner.
It depends. Depends on:
- does the college grant specific course credit for passing AP exams?
- does the college only give course credit if you get a 4 or 5 on the exam?
- does the college give specific course credit for passing an AP exam or do you get it applied to something more general like “Humanities electives” or something like that?
- whether the college gives credit for APs at all. Some don’t, yet they do expect you to have taken the AP exam if you took an AP class. AND they want you to pass the AP exam…but it won’t get you any credit at that college.
- if the student decides to change their major partway through their college experience.
- if the courses they’ll get AP credit for at the college they’re attending will actually knock out some general ed requirements. There can be some variation to this based on what your major is.
- if the student decides to use the extra “space” in their schedule to double major
- if the student decides to use the extra “space” in their schedule to take, for example, 12 units per semester instead of 15.
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This is what we found. Both my kids were business majors, both came in with AP credits (which exempted them from one or to GenEd requirements and exempted them from having to take placement tests for math and foreign lang), but they still had requirements to fulfill in their major, which prevented them from graduating in less than 4 years. My older daughter was able to underload in her second semester senior year and graduated in 4 years. My younger daughter is on track to graduate in 4 years.
It may be major/college dependent but we’ve come to the conclusion that taking AP’s in high school is more to show rigor on college apps than it is to graduate early.
My husband keeps suggesting that my younger daughter should be graduating early and we keep trying to explain that she can’t because she has requirements to fill in her major. It’s not just about the number of credit hours she has.
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Four-year colleges are called “four-year colleges” because their students were meant to graduate in four years. When most of their students graduated in 4 years or under 5, there was no need to collect data. On many (but not all) campuses, universities have observed their students were taking longer to graduate. The common measures for graduation rates have been extended to 6 years (even 8 years), because 4-year graduate rates have become abysmal. Only slightly over 40% of students graduate in 4 years nationwide and that 4-year graduation rate has been dropping. We may disagree on why it’s taking longer for students to graduate, but I don’t think it’s disputable that it does take longer for them to graduate.
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The 4 year graduation rate was one of the metrics we considered when vetting colleges. Obviously it’s not an exact science but when you’re full-pay, 4 years sounds much better than 6.
We stressed the 4 year plan with both my kids (especially my current rising junior who is full pay OOS). If they want to drastically change majors, don’t wait until junior year or the additional time is on them.
I am in a state with a high dual enrollment participation rate and am seeing that trend as well. In a neighboring school district in the same state, advanced math (including AP) are being transitioned to online only for public high schools because dual enrollment has become so popular and AP math class participation has decreased relative to five years ago.
Local parents say that they prefer dual enrollment because the applicability to college credit is clearer to them than AP and their students prefer DE to AP for some reason.
I looked at AP applicability to college credit on the colleges’ websites and it looked even clearer to me than dual enrollment, so I’m not sure where this perception is coming from. I do know that the school districts are funding dual enrollment but not paying for the AP tests. If the students prefer the DE classes to the AP classes, that may be the driving factor.
None of these trends are accelerating graduation for matriculating students. I know a lot of college students who are working full time while in school and they take longer to graduate.
I don’t have a citation for this information. It’s all observational.