<p>^ Same at Minnesota, barrons. I happen to know the provost. It drives him crazy because Minnesota gets hammered in its U.S. News rankings for this, but every year a substantial fraction of the entering class comes in saying they’re “on the 6-year plan,” meaning they intend to work their way through college with little or no support from their parents. It’s part of our Upper Midwest ethic of hard work and self-reliance, I think. The parents did it back in their day, they’re proud of it, they think it means more to earn your degree if you pay for it yourself instead of having it handed to you, they think it “builds character,” and so there the parents are on the sidelines, actively cheering on junior as he sets out to do the same thing they did. But it’s more expensive now, support from the legislature is weaker so tuition has increased, and wages for unskilled labor have not kept up with the rising cost of public higher education. So 6 years has a way of slipping into 7, or 8. Most do make it through eventually. But the reported 4-, 5-, and 6-year graduation rates look pretty low, and the uninformed, lacking any context for the reported data, take this as an indication of some kind of “problem” with the university. The “problem,” if it is one, is our culture of hard work and self-reliance, things that used to be considered virtues, and still are in this part of the country.</p>