<p>When a friend of mine started stressing about her son taking an extra semester to graduate from college I thought she was overacting. Now I know of several students who are in their 7th, 8th, even 9th year of college and have not yet earned a degree. I'm not talking about students who have taken a year or two off. These are students that have been taking classes continuously for years. The most common reason I hear is "changing majors" but I'm sure there's more going on.</p>
<p>Anyone here in this situation? Any tips for parents of newly admitted students on how to prevent the undergraduate years from dragging on? Even at a state school, this has got become expensive!</p>
<p>We told our kids we were paying for 4 years. S1 graduated in 4 years and S2 is on track to graduate in 4 years. It can be done. I can understand why certain kids might need 5 at some schools that have class crowding issues, or it’s a 5 year program or something like that but more than 5 to me is the kids’ problem not the parents’ problem.</p>
<p>I talked to my daughter about taking the elective classes on real classes…not blow off classes to just get credits. Make all credits count towards something that she would seriously consider doing. </p>
<p>When she was in 8th grade she took a gifted program at a college and we had her take what she thought she would want to do (instead of fun/goofy classes). One class she did was digital web design which she liked (still does it actually at home) but realized it wasn’t something she wanted a career at. I feel that was a benefit for us to know it ahead of time.</p>
<p>It’s tough because in high school nowdays they aren’t given a chance to try many things. Our district gets them on a plan and pigion holes them for one specific goal. It hurts them in the long run I think. She didn’t have the variety of learning different fields like we used to get IMO .</p>
<p>I’d agree and say 4 years we can help with but after that you’re not paying for . It’s a very expensive time to test the waters. My D is also going in freshman yr with about 10 credit hours at least from AP classes which will help her be able to jump into her degree class her freshman 2nd semester. Not spending time on basics in college will be a benefit I think.</p>
<p>I’m encouraging my son to take an extra semester or even a year if he needs it, and happy to pay for it. He’s decided to dual major, econ/cs. I’ve told him that if he can get a comp sci degree at one of the top (and hardest) schools in the country, it is something he will always have no matter what, and will pay dividends. He’s not messing around, he’s working hard, and internships every summer.</p>
<p>It would be different if he was taking extra time to drink beer and do poorly in school. I say if he can stomach the extra time in class, I can fork out the extra tuition. Though it might be another 54K.</p>
<p>One big reason for our kids’ choice of schools (that is to stay in Canada vs go to an equivalent but much more expensive US school), is because it means he can take extra years and we don’t have to stress about it at all. We would be full pay in the US so fin aid is out of the question. But paying say $15k-20 a year for McGill or Waterloo, for us, means the ability for our son to take more than four years, That could happen for a lot of reasons: to take an internship, to do a study abroad that does’t fit nicely into transferrable credits, to change majors, to reduce one’s load if it helps one’s GPA, or to do a dual major. Or even to do an extra year so he can take those great liberal arts electives when there would not otherwise be room for that many (as an engineering major). There are a host of good reasons to have the opportunity to explore which to me, is the point of a real education. I realize not everyone has this financial luxury but for our family, we think it’s worth paying less COA to provide that kind of buffer.</p>
<p>My daughter took and extra year. She did a minor and a certificate in two areas that really interested her (entomology and environmental something). She enjoyed the entomology so much that she was debating doing a masters in that rather than in her major, but decided to work a while before she applies for a masters program. </p>
<p>The fact that her tuition scholarship was good for 5 years made it more of an option than it would otherwise have been. But she did hit a point of wishing she had stayed on the 4 year track as she is feeling burned out on schooling.</p>
<p>My DD is doing 5 years as well. She added a minor to her BFA, and a teaching certificate. Her minor could almost be a double major and she did study abroad. When I set up her 529 plan, when she was in 6th grade, i set it up anticipating 5 years because i knew she would explore intellectually. I gave her that freedom.</p>
<p>There probably is more going on. My guess is that these students have to take remedial classes, have more than a couple of "W"s, and are often taking 12 credits per semester. Pehaps some take just 2 classes and go to school part time. </p>
<p>There was a college we were looking at that had a low graduation rate. I was not sure as to why. One explanation from the admissions office (took a lot of probing from me) was that quite a few students work and take 2 classes each semester (part time students).</p>
<p>Changing majors can frequently add a year on to getting a bachelor’s (depending, of course, on what a kid changes from/to). If, for instance, a kid starts in a BSN track, decides he can’t handle the science, and moves to education, he’s added a year. Why? Education, thanks to state curriculum requirements, is a full major with almost no electives. The chemistry, anatomy, and physiology the nursing student took year one do not fulfill the science requirements for teachers. A student decides after a few practicums that he really doesn’t want to work with kids, changes majors again, and there’s a 6th year. </p>
<p>Transferring can have a similar effect, especially at a private school. Private schools often have some “unique” gen eds that may not fulfill any requirement at another school. Typically, that won’t add 2 years, but transfer more than once, and it might. </p>
<p>And there might be something else going on with the kid, too.</p>
<p>One of my D’s potential career paths is education, and at one of the schools she’s seriously considering, that’s a five-year path (BA in a content-area subject followed by a MS in education). We’ve told her that if that’s the path she wants to follow, we’ll fund the five years.</p>
<p>I changed my major AFTER my junior year. It took me 5 years to graduate. I do not see how anyone would need 7, 8, or 9 years to get a Bachelor’s degree. They are either taking very few classes, constantly changing majors, repeatedly failing out, or something else funny is going on.</p>
<p>Years ago Ohio State’s engineering program was 5 years. I loved it because it allowed me to take quite a few interesting tech and non-tech electives that broadened my education considerably. At some later date OSU returned to a 4 year degree program to encourage more student to continue on in a graduate degree program.</p>
<p>Our son completed a double comp sci/cogsci double major and philosophy/game simulation double minor in 4 years with the help of AP credits and summer courses. However it significantly narrowed the breadth of his coursework. I would have preferred he limited himself to a typical major/minor degree program.</p>
<p>I told my dd I was paying for 3 1/2 years of college and that is it. She got almost a full year credit going into her college. I am still mad she didn’t go to others that would have granted her more than a years worth of college credit and free tuition. I paid for all those IB and AP tests for a reason. I carted her to all her activities to get her volunteer hours and to her many sports practices and games. I view it as a little payback for making me pay atleast an extra 60k.</p>
<p>In many cases, I think graduating in 4 years takes foresight, flexibility, and keeping on task. Students who think they are doing fine if they are a fulltime student taking 12 credits a semester aren’t going to graduate with 120 credits in 4 years. Students who take two tough classes and then two easy “fun” classes that don’t fulfill any requirements are also in for a surprise. Students who listen to advisors that tell them to explore their first years and just work on their gen eds without any focus on what classes are required prerequisites for upper level courses in possible majors are at a disadvantage. In large state schools, sometimes freshmen are closed out of required classes, and need to plan carefully. Oftentimes it is the classes that are taken freshman year that spell out whether a student will be on task to graduate in 4 years. </p>
<p>When my two kids started at their large universities, it took hours to just read through the catalog and requirements to understand how to craft a good flexible 4 year plan for a major and possible back-up major, as well as any other interests. Prerequisites and corequisites abounded in the major, as well as the core requirements for depth, breadth, non-western culture, non-modern culture, literature, historical analysis, cultural analysis, behavior analysis, cognition, moral reasoning, quantitative reasoning … (a far cry from my college days when I was just given a list of departments and asked to take 1 intro course from each of them). When an interesting course was found that fulfilled two or more requirements, as well as fit into a possible minor it felt like finding a treasure! </p>
<p>What is especially difficult is that registration is always at the part of the semester when students are buried under their current workloads and find it hard to carve out the time to figure out a plan for the next semester, based on all the new courses being offered and the old ones being canceled. I always tried to help by reading the course catalogs before my kids’ registration and giving them advice on how to fit in what they wanted to do and still stay on task. I think they both had to ask for waivers to take some of the courses when they did, but both finished with majors and minors in four years.</p>
<p>If you are a parent of a hs senior reading this thread, and your child will be going to a large state school, here’s one hint. Many times freshmen get closed out of popular intro classes for fall term but could have taken that same class during the summer after hs graduation and then been able to take the second term when the hoardes are trying to get into the first one.
For example, take Bio 101 in the summer, register for Bio 102 in the fall.<br>
Getting closed out of courses is going to get worse before it gets better at most state universities.</p>
<p>Good advice dragonmom! To high school students headed to certain state schools, I would also like to point out a big benefit of having taken AP courses (besides letting you skip some intro courses) is treating an incoming freshman as a sophomore when it comes to registration - with enough AP credits, you have priority over other freshmen in registering for courses. Priority registration is also given for enrolling in some honors programs.</p>
<p>My S graduated in 4 years. He COULD have graduated in 3.5 but we encouraged him to stay & take some fun courses & enjoy his SR year. He also could have attended schools where he got more than the 60 credits he was given at his U. </p>
<p>D is taking 5 years. She started at a CC for 3 semesters & transferred. We have no problems paying for her 3.5 years at private U + the CC. She said she possibly could have graduated a term earlier, but we felt she should cultivate her contacts & graduate to a JOB–that is still our hope.</p>
<p>H took 7 years to get his bachelor’s degree–he worked his way through school. He did switch out of engineering into accounting, which added to the time. I took 4 years–could have graduated in 3, even with my transfer from our flagship public to OOS public. I spent SR year working on an honors thesis, doing a lot of ECs I enjoyed & working on law school applications. I got enough merit & FAid grants that it was basically free for me to stay the 4th year.</p>
<p>Families & circumstances are all different. Hard to know why & how folks are making their choices. Publics require considerable planning & work to get the required courses in the correct sequences–many get bogged down by that, from what I’ve been hearing, especially at UCs & CSUs. This can add to the # of years it takes to graduate.</p>
<p>I’ve also heard that it’s hard to get into the classes you want at the UCs & CSUs. Come to think of it, most of the students that I know that are taking more than 5 years to graduate are at state schools. However, I don’t think it’s fair to force students to take more than four years to graduate. Would it be that difficult for these schools to offer sufficient spots in classes that students want or need to take to graduate? Students who choose large state schools often do so because they’re short of funds to begin with. Even one extra year can be a big financial burden.</p>
<p>I hope the parents of high school seniors are reading this thread. I’m sure most parents don’t consider the possibility of a fifth year or more when their children are entering college.</p>