<p>"Today, especially among low-income students who attend public community colleges as a gateway to a college or university, 27 percent actually graduate in four years ... Most students take at least six years, and even then only 55 percent get their degrees." ...</p>
<p>11% of HS students have been diagnosed with ADD; one in 5 boys. Add the Aspies, and we have a whole lot of people with Executive Function Disorder starting college without the necessary coaching. That should also be added to the mix.</p>
<p>The low income students who start at CC before transferring to a four year school are more likely to take longer because they may be attending CC part time while working, perhaps taking three or four years of part time attendance to complete the first two years’ of courses before transferring. Is this not obvious?</p>
<p>ucbalumnus- You may very well be right… but it may also be that our high schools and elementary schools are not sufficiently preparing them for their next step, or there could be another answer. The important part is that they have a successful college experience.</p>
<p>We should never assume we know something or consider it obvious without researching all of the facts first. Our college courses should in fact be teaching us that “obvious” facts are not always correct- look at what we have learned regarding the quirks of human behavior and mental processes through the study of behavioral economics.</p>
<p>All of these factors contribute. Another is that many college students change majors mid-stream. Often, required courses are not available in any given semester. back in the day, an extra semester was not that big a deal, but with the costs soaring as they have in the past 15 years, many of forced to drop out (often with substantial debt.)</p>
<p>Poor advising at lower-cost schools may be a problem too.</p>
<p>I don’t think that a person is necessarily a failure if they don’t graduate in four years. It took me about a dozen years.</p>
<p>One thing about community college is that quite a few of the Associates Degree programs do not get “all of the basics” out of the way. My son’s AA program requires one class in each of the following: English Comp; Speech; Government; Health; and Math OR Science. Many Bachelors degrees require at least one more semester of English and History, at least two semesters of Math AND Science, and 2-4 semesters of a foreign language…that is about a semester and a half of course work right there.</p>
<p>I understand the stats about the lower income students…but what about the students in the more “elite” (there’s that word again, sorry!) colleges and universities who seem to be taking AP classes by the armload. Why are these schools still not getting kids out in 4 years when a good number of the kids are coming in with transferable credits?</p>
<p>At Berkeley’s L&S, we’re not allowed to fulfill “breadth requirements” with AP credits. 7 courses + R&C B requirement = 8 classes…a full year. While two of those courses, bio and chem/physics, are part of the STEM pathway already, I could have graduated with two degrees in 3.5 years without those courses – 3 if I’d planned better :o, and 2.5 if I’d AP’d out of chemistry, physics, and bio. God knows I had the AP credits to do it.</p>
<p>A lot of “elite” colleges don’t give much AP credits so it may not cut down on time. </p>
<p>I can think of a number of reasons that caused students I know or know of not to graduate on time: money, changing majors, double majoring or more, studying abroad, getting pregnant, failing out (while I do know of some for whom academics were challenging, I also know of kids who did not have the executive functioning or had psychological problems show up at that age), taking a break because they disliked their school, getting kicked out for drugs or bad behavior and losing housing. </p>
<p>One of my kids attended a school with a very high graduation rate and, now that my kid has gone through the school, I see why: without watering down academics, it is absolutely the top focus of the school. All students attend ft. General education requirements are fulfilled in the first two years. A major must be declared by the end of the 2nd year. Kids who fail a class add an extra class the next semester; kids who fail two classes are suspended and allowed to reapply to return after they’ve passed two pre-approved (read: transferable) classes elsewhere. Students are not allowed to add majors, minors or change concentrations near the end of their program. It’s also an expensive school and I believe financial aid is limited to 8 semesters. My biggest issue with this has been that, since it is a small liberal arts college, if you don’t happen to get into a class you want at the beginning of your degree program, you can effectively be shut out from a concentration-- meaning, if you try to change your major at some point in your degree program, you will only be able to do so if you were able to take the right courses early on because they are not going to let you take the intro class junior year. </p>
<p>This is very different from the state school from which I graduated where you could attend forever pretty much and just keep adding majors. I sort of enjoyed that but it was a very different experience.</p>
<p>A lot of students attending a CC have no focus and no real intention of graduating in 4 years or necessarily at all. They’re attending because they don’t have any other plans of what to do when they graduate HS. They think they should attend college, they sometimes are under pressure by parents to attend ‘college’, so they go and mess around taking random courses for a year or two or three until they decide to quit college to do their p/t job full time, get married and need more immediate income, etc. </p>
<p>And then there are the students attending CC who are taking coursework they should have completed in HS. The stats for these students on ‘completing college’ shouldn’t even be included in the stats and they should probably have a separate accounting delineating those taking actual college level courses from those taking HS redux courses.</p>
<p>There also people like me who took courses just for the fun of it as an adult. I took a course to learn how to play golf. It was very cheap and good intro and fun. I hope they don’t count those students in stats like these.</p>
<p>And some of the above characteristics apply to some other colleges as well - not just CCs. </p>
<p>There are a number of students who must pay their own way and are working their way through college and supporting themselves at the same time. It’s liable to take them longer to complete college but this is no negative that s/b laid upon their shoulders - just the opposite IMO.</p>
<p>There are some people who specifically aren’t trying to graduate in 4 years and are enjoying taking multiple majors/minor and various courses and some colleges not only allow this but due to a lower cost the student is able to afford to do so.</p>
<p>There are, of course, some students attending a CC who are focused, take the right coursework, transfer to a 4 year college, and do fine and save money in the process. </p>
<p>I think people need to take care when reading some of these stats since they’re a little too broad without adequate focus. People need the focus in order to understand how various stats would apply to them.</p>
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<p>State universities in California have been imposing credit unit caps to prevent students from attending forever (using up more than “their share” of in-state subsidy money). For example, Berkeley L&S prevents students who have taken 8 semesters (or 4 since junior transfer) and 130 units from registering for another fall or spring semester, and San Jose State limits high unit seniors to registering only for courses that they specifically need to fulfill subject requirements to graduate.</p>
<p>Even the community colleges are looking at limits on the number of units one can take at in-state tuition.</p>
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What happens if a Berkeley student gets shut out of a needed class their freshmen year and is forced to take a different one unrelated to their field of study? Are they not allowed to complete one more semester to finish their major?</p>
<p>Courses that don’t count. hmmm? Does that mean electives? Courses students take because they’re curious about a subject or want to dabble in a field outside the major? I really don’t like the idea of criticizing a school for offering “Lady Gaga and the Sociology of Fame.” There’s nothing wrong with electives.</p>
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<p>The only Berkeley L&S major that I know of with a prerequisite sequence longer than 6 semesters is physics (whose long sequence is 7 semesters), and then only if the student does not start in a math course more advanced than Math 1A (first semester frosh calculus, which many students skip with AP credit). So Berkeley L&S majors do tend to have “slack” in their schedules so that students who miss a course for some reason or start on their majors late can still graduate in 8 semesters. In addition, the “not getting into courses you need for your majors to graduate on time” does not seem to be a problem that students complain about on the Berkeley forum. Also, the Berkeley L&S unit limit effectively allows 9 full 15-unit semesters, since after 8 full 15-unit semesters, the student will have 120 units, and will not go over the unit cap until completion of the 9th semester (AP credit and college courses taken while in high school do not count against the unit cap).</p>
<p>Berkeley Engineering has tighter schedules, but since students are already declared in majors, or at least in the College of Engineering, as frosh, they get prioritized for courses needed for their majors at registration time. Berkeley Engineering students must request permission for any semesters beyond 8.</p>
<p>The idea that “everyone” should go to college is part of the problem. Some kids just aren’t cut out for academic work.</p>
<p>Some kids have no direction, no goal. So they drop out instead of spending more time/money with no clear career plan.</p>
<p>Many students have financial problems. They struggle going to school, working part-time or full-time. Some don’t have any family support system. It is just too tough and many drop out.</p>
<p>A twist on the “financial problems” issue: students who are able to afford a school due to generous merit aid, don’t meet the required GPA and have to leave the school. My son just chatted with two guys in that category the other night.</p>
<p>Why do students have to finish in 4 years? What is the rush? I fail to see why it is some sort of crisis for a young person to work and attend college for 7 or 8 years.</p>
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<p>Not at all…but if mommy and daddy are paying for full time tuition, the 529 is probably not large enough for 16 semesters.</p>
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<p>I would imagine that most student who have to work a significant number of hours are paying by the credit and attending part time.</p>