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In an ideal world, that might be so – but most of the CSU students I know are working their way through college, often at less than full time enrollment, because that is what they have to do. When my son was at a CSU, his Pell grant was enough to cover the full cost of tuition – but tuitions have doubled since then, so that wouldn’t be the case for current CSU students. My son was able to work half time while also maintaining a full coarse load, but he wasn’t a “typical” in the sense of “non-elite-level academic qualifications” – he was an NMF who started at a private LAC that had a 63% 4-year graduation rate for his cohort, but he wasn’t counted among them. He graduated from a different college 7 years after he started, which was fine by me. He only attended college for 8 semesters, they just weren’t consecutive, and he saved a considerable amount of money by shifting to a public institution. </p>
<p>That’s one other big hole in your assumptions based on grad rate figures – you are assuming that those who graduate in 5 or 6 years have attended successive, consecutive semesters. I am sure there are many students graduating from UC’s or CSU’s in year #5 or #6 who have attended and paid for only 4 semesters, but just weren’t able to do so continuously.</p>