<p>This is fantastic news in my opinion!</p>
<p>Click link for article:</p>
<p>It does seem strange with many students coming into the universities with a lot of their liberal studies requirements complete, you would think the students would finish their bachelor degree in 2 to 3 years. I am not sure if young adults are taking their time because they don't want to grow up, want to get the full 4 years of bright futures money or they want to insure that they have the highest GPA for entrance into graduate school.</p>
<p>I like the idea of letting the students use any leftover Bright Futures money for graduate school so students would be encouraged to finish quicker. I am surprised to read that 2/3 of students are only taking 12 credits because I was thinking many students were taking double majors or minors to stretch out their college time but I guess that is not the case.</p>
<p>SSobick, I was going to post this article on here but you beat me to it.</p>
<p>Cybermom, why wouldn't students want to get the full 4 years experience especially if there is no incentive to leave early? I think the next logical thing would be to approve the flat tuition structure. Obviously this tuition structure would eliminate any lost tuition revenue that wouldn't be generated from students not taking full course loads.</p>
<p>With that said, I think it would be unfair to charge students 15 credits per semester in certain majors if its unrealistic to take that many to begin with.</p>
<p>As UF's probably my d's first choice, of course, I'm very interested in how this falls out. She'll be one of those kids who come in with tons of AP credit. She already -- before taking this year's crop of exams in May -- has all the gen ed requirements fulfilled, except math and something called "diversity." She'll have the math fulfilled after her AP calc b/c exam. However, we don't want her to use all those credits ... she'll probably only use the liberal arts ones, but we want her to take all the science courses at the university insteady of using her AP bio, physics, and chem. As her major will be science related we wanted the most exposure to those disciplines (thus taking two classes -- honors and AP -- in each area, except bio), to increase her chances for doing better in her classes at UF. She also took the classes to show rigor in her schedule, as the article suggested for admittance. </p>
<p>My S, who's at UCF, came in with 30 hours of AP credit, too. In his case, his all fit perfectly, and he's using every bit of it. So, he's beginning his second year classified as a junior. However, as law school is his intent, and he has a job which is a perfect show-case for his passions, which are interactive entertainment law, we've encouraged him to slow down his pace. He's only taking 13 hours this semester, allowing him to increase hours for his job and also allow him to try and extend to 4 years before graduation. Being younger and applying to law school would probably not be in his best interest, and having the time to keep up his G.P.A. (by only taking 4 instead of 5 classes) and continue doing well at his job, which is essentially the best lab he could have for his economics major, is in his best interest ... even if it may not be in the university's best interest in clearing a spot.</p>
<p>zebes</p>
<p>Lots of slacker undergrads stick around for a few extra football seasons to enjoy UF. Make them go to Graduate/Professional School or get the heck out of town. Stop wasting our tax dollars on slackers!</p>
<p>Zebes: You can only transfer 30 credits worth of AP credit as you mentioned. Since some exams can count for up to 8 credits, you won't get to use all of your credit probably. A way to get around this is to take community college classes over the summer/ while in hs which I did and eliminated a few more classes that way. The sad part is I still didn't graduate for 3.5 years and ended up with 150 credits instead of 126 required to graduate -- however, if I had graduated earlier, I would have lost out on some great academic opportunities.</p>
<p>Depending on major, taking more than 12 credits is a real pain in the ass. I was taking a couple graduate-level classes my junior and senior year and those classes were a lot of work. In fact, UF only expects you to take three of them per semester to have a full load. If I had been told I need to add another course I might have felt overwhelmed.</p>
<p>15 credit hours is fine. Some students can take up to 18 hours and do fine. I say cut them very little slack, and charge flat tuition charges. This is what almost all flagships do, so the student body should have nothing to complain about</p>
<p>Back in ancient times, when I went to college, we were anxious to get on with our careers and our financially independent adult life. Knowing a lot of students are coming in with 30 credits, it is hard to understand why many take 6 years or more and suffer from "failure to launch" syndrome.</p>
<p>30 credit doesn't always guarantee that you will graduate early. For many I know, it just allowed them not to take summers. In engineering, I know many people in civil, chemical, and eletrical that took the 4.5 and 5 year track, even when coming in with 30 credits. For some reason, most of the people I know that did materials and biological were able to finish in 4 years.</p>
<p>I know I still need to post the updated 2009 USNWR numbers but at least here is a comparison of the graduation rates vs. the other top 10 state schools.</p>
<p>Total 16% of TOTAL USNWR score.</p>
<p>Overall Rank/ State Rank/ School/ Grad Rate- actual
44/ 12t/ UC- SB/ 85%
35/ 8/ UC- San Diego/ 84%
47/ 15t/ PSU/ 84%
40/ 10/ UIUC/ 82%
49/ 17/ UF/ 81%/ ranked 12th
35/ 9/ UW-Madison/ 80%
44/ 12t/ UC- Irvine/ 80%
44/ 12t/ UC- Davis/ 79%
47/ 15t/ UT- Austin/ 78%
41/ 11/ UWashington/ 75% </p>
<p>Although UF is the 17th ranked state school it ranks #12 amongst the top 10 schools with an 81% 6 yr graduation rate.
Not too bad.</p>
<p>NOTE: this category is worth a wooping 16% of the total USNWR score.
Any incremental increase in this category will raise UF's current standing.</p>
<p>So how does UF do that?</p>
<p>To answer your question:</p>
<ol>
<li>Become more selective</li>
<li>Reduce the size of the incoming class</li>
<li>Get rid of the party school image</li>
<li>Reduce the student to faculty ratio</li>
<li>Provide more academic advisors</li>
<li>Get the alumni to donate to undergraduate education</li>
<li>Force the Deans to become more accountible</li>
<li>Stop the culture of mediocrity that happens to some of the lazy students</li>
<li>Apply pressure to have the bars stop serving drinks at 1:00pm, perhaps close at this time if at all possible.</li>
<li>Tweak Bright Futures to cut off their money supply</li>
<li>Create internships that offer significant academic credit for the major</li>
<li>Start Block-Tuition that charges a flat rate</li>
</ol>
<p>
[quote]
10. Tweak Bright Futures to cut off their money supply
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That is a good idea. BF should only be available to a student for their first 4 years of school. After that, the scholarship expires.</p>
<ol>
<li>Get rid of worthless Gen Ed requirements such as "diversity" & "international".Thats 6 credit hours right there that you could use to take a core class in your major.</li>
<li>Continue to raise tuition to a level where you will get parents pushing their kids to graduate in 4 yrs.</li>
</ol>
<p>Here are my comments to your suggestions so far.</p>
<ol>
<li>Become more selective</li>
<li><p>Reduce the size of the incoming class</p></li>
<li><p>Get rid of the party school image- How do you do that?</p></li>
<li><p>Reduce the student to faculty ratio</p></li>
<li><p>Provide more academic advisors- </p></li>
<li><p>Get the alumni to donate to undergraduate education- UF has a 17% alumni giving rate. Much improvement required here. How do you direct donations towards just UG's?</p></li>
<li><p>Force the Deans to become more accountable- Bonuses?</p></li>
<li><p>Stop the culture of mediocrity that happens to some of the lazy students- They were obviously not lazy when they got into UF, so what happened?</p></li>
<li><p>Apply pressure to have the bars stop serving drinks at 1:00pm, perhaps close at this time if at all possible.- Drinking age is 21. Is it really the bars?</p></li>
<li><p>Tweak Bright Futures to cut off their money supply- This will politically never happen.</p></li>
<li><p>Create internships that offer significant academic credit for the major</p></li>
<li><p>Start Block-Tuition that charges a flat rate</p></li>
</ol>
<p>4 years or when a student acquires 120 credit hours total (Which ever comes first, and yes AP credits must count). The administrators need to send the message that we are not screwing around any more. No more letting the students dictate to everyone else! </p>
<ul>
<li>However, an exemption for engineering students should be made. They require more time and more credits.</li>
</ul>
<p>I can't imagine having 30 credit hours and taking 6 years, either. We figure that having about 30 hours at UF will allow our D to complete a B.S. in chemical engineering in 4 years w/o having to go to summer school, unless she decides to do pharmacy, in which case two years of pre-reqs and 4 years of pharmacy school is the goal ... and that would be six years. LOL</p>
<p>zebes</p>
<p>The problem with Bright Futures is that the Legislature feels that if they deviate at all from the original design then the entire scholarship will be placed in jeoprady.</p>
<p>Did you know a student can qualify for 75% tuition paid with a 970 on the SAT. This is freaking ridiculous!</p>
<p>
[quote]
14. Continue to raise tuition to a level where you will get parents pushing their kids to graduate in 4 yrs.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>I'm not so sure raising tuition alone is going to get parents to push their kids through school because "cost per credit hour" in itself isn't a function of time. But I get what you're saying though. Increase tuition and use the "flat model" and we'll get kids graduating in a hurry.</p>
<p>Moderators, is there a way to deleted the above post??? Thanks!</p>
<p>
[quote]
I can't imagine having 30 credit hours and taking 6 years, either.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>The 6 year thing cant be common. It has to be certain people. Most of my friends graduated in 4 years. I know a triple major that did it in 4. People doing 4.5-5 were engineering majors or came to college not knowing what they wanted to do, so they took crappy electives starting off and fell behind.</p>
<p>im convinced that SSobick is an extremist and has no compromise.</p>
<p>i agree, raise tuition because its rediculously low.</p>
<p>as for your comment on the SAT 970 75% BF. i think its fine, maybe a little higher but i had plenty of friends who were hard workers, and graduated with a better GPA than me but got significantly lower SAT scores, should they be punished for it? i dnt think so. i got a 1270 so im fine at 100% but there are people who deserve it. also, i have to say that fafsa is not the best system in the world so even more emphasis is put on BF.</p>
<p>please, get the idea of UF being a GT or Stanford out of your head. i can guarentee that if it turns to that you will have significantly less kids wanting to go there. the reason for it being popular is the balance between state best academics, amazing sports program, and overall college feel in gainesville. take away 2 of those and you got urself a problem.</p>