Both USNews and the new Obama college data website, https://collegescorecard.ed.gov/, give college graduation rates as “6 year graduation rate”. Meanwhile, all these colleges are listed under “4 year universities”, and the total cost in their net price calculators count only 4 years of expenses. Does anyone else find this deceitful? If these are still “Four year” universities, why aren’t we only counting 4 year graduation rates? If 6 year graduation has become the norm, then “4 year universities” is a misnomer and they should be renamed “6 year universities”, and the net price calculator should be adjusted to count for 6 years of expenses not 4.
I think it’s completely duplicitous of colleges to report their graduation rate as 6 year graduation rates. They should all be made to report 4 year graduation rates to be in-line with their “Four year private/public university” distinction and their net price calculators.
The most recent 4-year grad rate is 67% while the 6-year rate is 88%. Why the difference? UF allows (and supports) students to change up majors in their first year or two. This could push your graduation past 4 years. UF also supports co-ops, internships (fall and spring terms) and travel abroad. All could add time to graduation. Other issues, most based on decisions made by students, but also some that are the fault of the university (like not offering enough seats in a critical track class) could also push graduation rates back.
On the other hand, lots of students graduate from UF in less than 4 years (based on your major), since it’s easy to bring in AP/IB/DE/AICE credits.
Graduation rates can be useful when comparing colleges and for dictating possible problems, but it’s not the end all to be all…
They may report it, but the USN and the Obama website only seem to care about the 6 year graduation rate. The US News Table data only shows 6 years, and the Obama website only shows 6 years, because the 6 year numbers make them look better. To continue to call these “4 year institutions” is therefore deceitful IMO.
Some majors, pharmacy, architecture, physical therapy, require 5 or 6 years to earn a degree, not 4. Some coop schools like Northeastern and Drexel have a majority of their students in 5 year programs but students only attend classes for 8 semesters.
Also, if a student changes majors 2 or 3 times, takes a less than full time schedule or fails or withdraws from courses they will need more than 4 years to graduate.
I’ll add that I suspect that many students who take 5-6 years to graduate are not paying for 5-6 years. They are doing co-ops, as mentioned above (earning money, not paying tuition), or they take time off (for many reasons), extending the time it takes to finish their degree.
As noted above, the other ed.gov site, College Navigator, does show both 4-yr and 6-yr rates.
I would agree that the 4-year rate is more useful (certainly to me, personally, when it comes to reviewing schools for my kids), however it is important to understand that for some schools the 4-yr rate can be misleading because of the large number of students that are required to do co-ops, for example.
Also, many commuter based schools have many students taking lower course loads due to work obligations.
Many less selective schools have many students who need remediation or cannot handle full course loads, so graduation rates tend to correlate with admission selectivity.
I thought the 6 year graduation rate was based on the amount of federal aid students can get. Isn’t the maximum based on 12 full-time semesters (6 years)?
I don’t think it’s deceitful. What do you want to call them? Five-year universities? Six-year universities? It took me eight years from the time I first entered college until I graduated. Should we call my school an Eight-year university, even though lots of people actually did graduate in four years?
As @WhataProcess mentioned, a lot of students who take 6 years to graduate aren’t necessarily paying for 6 years of school. The programs are still designed to take four years for a full-time student taking an average course load to finish, pending availability of classes. But in addition to co-ops, many students take time off for a variety of reasons - financial struggles, sickness, caring for family members, need time to regroup, etc. They’re not paying for college during that time, but that time is still included in the time to degree.
That’s why they still call them four-year colleges - they’re still designed to be completed in four years, and at the best public and private colleges most students DO still finish in four years.
At other colleges the 4 year rates are lower (often much lower). As others have pointed out, that usually isn’t because a bachelor degree program truly requires more than 4 years of full-time college-level study. It’s because many students arrive needing remedial preparation for college-level work, take less than a full course load in some terms, take time off, or switch majors.
There has to be a standard for apples-to-apples cost comparisons.
A typical bachelor degree program can be completed in 4 years of 30-credit-per-year enrollments.
You’re paying for a ~120-credit degree, whether you complete it in 3 years or 6.
“At about 70 colleges, 80%-90% of students graduate within 4 years.”
…and the vast majority of those schools either don’t offer engineering or have smaller programs in the discipline. Engineering oftentimes takes an additional semester/quarter to complete. Another reason why four year graduation rates aren’t as important as some posters like to think.
It just gives the best standard for comparison, you read too much in when you call it deceitful. Still, it would be helpful to know why they aren’t graduating in 4. Good reasons, like co-ops, or bad like can’t get enrolled in the classes you need to graduate? Sadly mostly it is lack of funds.
I think even the 4 year numbers can be misleading. How does a school account for summer classes (including summer abroad) into their 4 year numbers.? Perhaps there should be an 8 semester graduation rate.
Why should having a smaller engineering program matter? To graduate in engineering in 4 years you need to start in engineering. You just can’t switch into it later due to required foundation courses. It has nothing to do with the size of the program. In this case you are just saying large Us should get a pass.
These rates are lower than you would think. I guess what we really want to know is how many semesters do folks really end up paying for to get a bachelor’s degree.
Transfers out of a college do not “graduate” in these numbers, so they are somewhat misleading. Transfers and drop outs are both “non-graduates”.
Randomly looking for a college that publishes transfer out rates, I found CofC. 26% transfer out, so never “graduate”. No way to know if these people ever graduate with a bachelors.
Colleges do not publish transfer out data for the most part.
But, you could surmise that those who graduate in 6 years did not transfer out, so that is sort of a retention number. The gap between 4 and 6 years is too long to be really enlightening, since it is easy to get just one semester behind and not make your 4 year graduation date.
While lots of folks don’t believe it, 4 year graduation in an engineering program is not a given. Any issues over the 4 years will like delay graduation, all courses are in a sequence and there are no electives you can easily take over a summer. Add co-ops or academic year internships or study abroad, and you can easily need 5 years. The good news is that an extra semester or year can be paid for pretty easily with the good starting salaries and a bit of thrift in your 20s.
Most undergraduate degree programs are designed to be completed in four years. The reasons for it not happening are myriad and frankly a lot of them are not bad or in the control of the university. A coop student is still completing 4 years of education. They are merely working while attending school and gaining valuable experience. In my mind that doesn’t mean they haven’t completed the 4 year program in the allotted 8 semesters. Someone who is changing majors, double majoring, completing a minor outside of their major field all require more hours to complete. It is a personal decision and usually has little to do with the university. The numbers I would be more interested in are the transfer and dropout rates. That might have more correlation with the satisfaction of the students with a school than 4 and 6 year graduation rates.
Drop out rate would concern me much more than transfer. Transferring out means you had some issues with a school, but still have some likelihood of graduating with a 4 year degree and not just a pile of debt.
■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■■ has a great comparison tool with a lot of metrics including majors and 4,5,6 year graduation rates.
UCB, UCLA have fantastic graduation rates, GTech a bit lower and a bit scary that their transfer rates don’t account for the non-graduates. I would think the bottom of GTech’s class should be able to get a bachelors degree somewhere, it’s not trivial to get in. Their 4 year graduation rate is also very low, maybe due to % engineers.
I graduated from an engineering program over 20-years ago and was able to do so in 4-years (8-semesters). The total credit requirement to graduate back then was 135 credits (now 126). In order to graduate in 4-years, I had to take as high as 22-credits a couple of semesters. I also worked 40-hours per week (4pm - 12:00am, M-F) for 1.5 years, but discovered that there was no way I could complete my engineering degree and worked full/part-time.
Very few universities offer co-op programs, yet the 4-year graduation rates are very dismal at a large number of universities. It is as low as 9-10% for some 4-year institutions. Some CC comments suggest that low 4-year graduation rates should not an issue. If one factors in the actual opportunity cost of 2 additional years at an undergraduate institution (tuition, R&B, “lost” salary for 2-yrs,etc.) we are taking in excess of $200K for those additional two years. IMHO, a lot of students are comfortable at these universities and are in no hurry to leave. I saw a study where students with Dual Enrollments credits (30 - 60 credits), still take, on average, of 4-years to get their undergraduate degree, even though they could have completed their degree in 2 or 3 years.
There are penalties now in place to force students out the door much quicker, where in some states, students are hit with severe cost penalties for excess credits above a certain threshold. Low graduation rates affect the number of incoming freshman/transfer students at a large number of of public institutions, as these lagging students “clog-up” the system, putting a strain on not only their physical facilities, but also on the available financial aid.
Yes, an 8 semester (or 12 quarter) graduation rate could be informative, though the rates could change over time as additional students who started many years back eventually graduate after 8 semesters of school. Perhaps the calendar year rates can be given with sub-percentages, such as:
% who graduated in <= 4 years
of <= 4-year graduates, % who graduated in <= 8 semesters:
% who graduated in <= 5 years
of <= 5-year graduates, % who graduated in <= 8 semesters:
of <= 5-year graduates, % who graduated in <= 10 semesters:
% who graduated in <= 6 years
of <= 6-year graduates, % who graduated in <= 8 semesters:
of <= 6-year graduates, % who graduated in <= 10 semesters:
of <= 6-year graduates, % who graduated in <= 12 semesters:
Summer sessions at semester system schools are generally half semesters (half the length, full course load is half of that of a normal semester), while summer sessions at quarter system schools are generally regular quarters. Yes, it is possible for a 4-year graduate to have taken more than 8 semesters of school, if s/he also had one or more summer sessions of school.
Reporting such as the above can give more clarity on the graduation rates of co-op-focused schools, where the nominal time to graduation is 5 years, but with only 12 quarters or 8 semesters of school.
It would be “deceitful” if they simply listed a “graduation rate” without specifying that they are actually providing a six-year rate. Four-year graduation rates are readily available for any school.