In the parent’s FB page for DS16’s school some parents were upset that kids did not have Labor Day and Easter Monday off. I think all here agree that more short breaks is NOT the preferred direction. However, It can be an adjustment especially for Freshman parents. Not sure why it is a “surprise” though.
There is a lot of complaining on my D’s school’s parent page as well. Lots of students didn’t go home for Thanksgiving because it’s so close to the end of finals this year.
A big gripe is that technically Thanksgiving break is only W-S but so many profs end up cancelling M/T at the last minute. I can empathize that it makes flight arrangements tough.
That said, I think that if this is important to your family (not you OP, just people in general), it’s something to really consider and discuss when your kids are pulling together their college lists. It’s way easier to come home, or go visit your kid, on a short break if you are within an easy drive. Also makes it easier to see stuff your kid may be involved in at school.
I won’t have to deal with it any longer since both my kids are college seniors, but that’s my biggest gripe, too. D purposely planned her return home until 3 am Wednesday so she wouldn’t miss her Tuesday afternoon class. Then she went to that class and only a handful of students showed up so the prof was going to cancel! At least the students convinced him to hold class since they had made the effort to attend.
^^ this is really the issue, IMO. It’s one thing to have various long weekends off with all services as normal, but another to shut down so kids HAVE TO leave or make living/eating arrangements.
My kid’s alma mater only shut down dorms/dining in summer.
Now she works for a bank and gets ALL the federal holidays off - we traveled over Columbus day weekend this year 
Dorms are open at my kid’s school too. They officially close during winter break a few days after finals, but you can pay a fee and stay for the entire break if need be.
Yes that happens to my kids too – we would have made different arrangements if we knew but it isn’t like you can change flights willy nilly or wait to make a flight for a week like that to find out.
IMO, it would be great for all colleges to be closed the week of Thanksgiving so the travel for students would be much better and it’s really a great family holiday tradition for many.
Having students travel the Tuesday/Wednesday before TG is a nightmare especially when you throw in bad weather events like this year with many canceled flights and/or bad road conditions. This year many students I know traveled back to the east coast on Sunday night “red eyes” just to get to classes on Monday. If they were off all the previous week they could have gone back to college Saturday or even early Sunday making it much less stressful and getting maximum time at home with family.
The fall break was right after mid-terms and was only a long weekend. The two that went farther away did not come home. Everyone did not leave. They appreciated a couple of days off after studying for midterms
The frustration with Thanksgiving is that the kids don’t know very far ahead if there will be classes on Tuesday or even Wednesday. That makes it harder to make travel plans, especially for freshman that don’t know anyone with cars. But even if friends have cars, they don’t always have the same schedule.
The college I work at instituted an early-mid. Oct. four-day long weekend after the administration looked at studies that showed that a short break at that time helped with student retention and stress levels.
The timing of American Thanksgiving (late Nov.) is really bad for the semester rhythm. For example, this year I have one week of regular classes left (this week) before we go into finals. Thanksgiving weekend is packed with long-term assignments, papers due, etc. If colleges took the whole Thanksgiving week off, it would mean that students would be in exams practically until Christmas Eve.
Sometimes I think we should go to a trimester model like they do at the British universities (Sep-Jan, Jan-Apr, Apr-June).
Does anyone remember having to hitch hike home from college or pay for gas for someone going generally your way. The final few miles being picked up by your friends who had a car because they had a job and weren’t going to college. Lol.
I would have killed for Uber and the money to pay for it.
My only gripe about the short breaks is when the school closes campus and makes everyone leave.
Some of my favorite college moments were breaks where I stayed on campus to get work done and also played pretty hard.
Some colleges do use a quarter system with four 10-week quarters, three of which are the normal academic year (commonly (late)September-December, January-(mid)March, (late)March-(mid)June for the normal academic year, (late)June-(mid)September for the summer session; example: https://www.registrar.ucla.edu/Calendars/Annual-Academic-Calendar ).
However, having three 10-week quarters instead of two 15-week semesters in the academic year means more overhead – scheduling, registration, final exams, etc. need to be done one extra time per year, at extra work and cost. That may be one reason why the quarter system is not that common compared to the semester system.
In some places there were cars painted in bright colors called taxis. However, if you were not in an area where they cruised around picking up passengers off the street (typically high density business districts, airports, or train stations) or were black, you would need to call them (from a pay phone before cell phones) to come get you.
“However, having three 10-week quarters instead of two 15-week semesters in the academic year means more overhead – scheduling, registration, final exams, etc. need to be done one extra time per year, at extra work and cost.”
That’s certainly all true. However, in my opinion the semester model only works if you have a good uninterrupted 15+ weeks. Currently, where I work we have a 14-week semester and it is a stressful disaster. I would much prefer three 12-week sessions with intense work, separated by breaks.
Three quarters with 12 weeks of instruction each would be a more relaxed pace (36 weeks of instruction) compared to two semesters with 14 weeks of instruction each (28 weeks of instruction), if the same amount of material were taught in each academic year.
However, that would mean that the academic year would be about 42-45 weeks long once buffer weeks for registration, final exams, etc. are added to each quarter. That would not leave room for a summer session that is typically the same length as a regular quarter at quarter system schools.
DS is at Carleton where they use the trimester system. They start in mid-late September, finish the first trimester the week of Thanksgiving, and don’t start the second trimester until after the New Year. That six week break is great for international/far away students, and gives some cool opportunities for internships and study abroad. The downside is finishing the year in June, later than most.
As Steven Wright says, “You can’t have everything - where would you put it?”
I remember being the only one in my fraternity house over Thanksgiving and walking down to the mini-mart for Cheez-It’s and Coke for dinner.
Yes, that’s pretty ridiculous - schools actually do that? What incremental cost could there be, compared to tuition revenue, to stay open for anything short of Winter and Summer breaks?