I noticed in the US News rankings that they include a six year graduation rate not a four year graduation rate - and it’s not the first media source I’ve noticed this. Why are they normalizing the idea that you can take six years to graduate? People can barely afford four years of college, and four years of college is how long it should take to get a degree. I feel like this is some conspiracy between colleges and the media to get students and parents used to the idea that it takes six years to graduate. I find it to be a little infuriating.
My D’s school put the 3 and 5 term co-op students in the 5 yr and 6yr graduation cohort even though they were only on campus for 8 semesters.
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My son’s school counted a single quarter over 4 years as 5 years, and ditto 1q over 5 = 6.
It has long been “normal” outside of elite schools (with students selected for top end academic strength and who are less likely to have financial problems affording college) that lots of students take more than four years to graduate college for various reasons.
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Reporting the data accurately isn’t “Normalizing”- it’s reporting. If this is how long it takes kids to graduate, then what should U’s do- bury the statistic?
Kids with adequate financial support typically graduate in 4 years. Kids who have parental resources as a backstop (i.e. aren’t worried about feeding themselves during breaks when the dining hall is closed, don’t have to wear broken eyeglasses because they can charge a new pair to mom’s credit card) typically graduate in 4 years.
Kids who need to take a semester off to work, take care of an ill family member, etc. are NOT going to graduate in four years. And so the statistics show how common that is for each college. The macro data shows that kids from affluent families tend to graduate after 8 semesters (whether or not there was a break in between) at a much higher rate than kids from poor families. Which jives with what most of us observe in our real life- kids in our own towns and communities who came back home to work their HS job when a parent’s job loss meant no college for now.
What’s infuriating about that? It’s sad- but not infuriating.
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My son’s degree plan (bachelor’s of music Ed) is for five years. He’s doing it in 4.5 but that’s technically graduating early.
D graduated in four years plus a summer (August grad) with a bachelor’s and a co-terminal master’s. Also more than 8 semesters but not late at all. The six year graduation rate captures those students as well as the ones that need an extra semester or so for other reasons (illness or family emergency, a failed prerequisite, a scheduling problem with a core class, etc) but who still graduated in a reasonable timeframe.
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In our home 4 years was considered normal (and expected).
But I do recognize that other’s situations, school programs, etc. can be different.
I know quite a few students attending state universities who take six years due to issues getting into necessary classes, as well as changes in degree midway through (sometimes several times). Students who work a lot often need to take fewer classes in a semester. Many, many students commute for school, and a lot of them balance school with work and family.
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There are many reasons why a student may take more than 4 years to graduate. One of the most common is class availability at some state schools. My son got caught in that and took 5 years to get his degree. At his freshman orientation, his department head quoted a 4 year graduation rate of only 15%. But a 5 year graduation rate of 85%, so it wasn’t a surprise. I wish it wasn’t true. My son said that some students started some classes and when they saw they weren’t going to get a good grade, dropped the class. They signed up for the same class the next semester putting a burden on the rest of the students trying to get into that class.
The common data set that most (all?) colleges publish lists the 4, 5 and 6 year graduation rates. We used that info to help my daughter select the college she would attend. She went with a college with a high 4 year grad rate.
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Colleges where this is a problem should make it so that students who late-drop a class (i.e. after it is too late for some other student to take their place) are given lower priority to register for that class in the future (i.e. those taking the class the first time have first chance to register for that class).
This extends the time to graduate even further! The students dropping the class don’t avoid that class- they just take it at a later date. If they are blocked from re-registering, it moves the goalposts even further out.
I think an easier solution is for colleges to note “re-registration” on the transcript. Then every premed who tries to game the system by getting “the easy” professor for Organic chemistry or physics at least has a notation on their transcript that this was not their first rodeo.
That should clean up some of the messiness! I doubt students are dropping “Architectural themes in Ancient Greece and Contemporary analogues”, even though that class might be every bit as difficult as Orgo.
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Better to have that student be delayed due to their own choice to late-drop a class, rather than some other student be delayed due to not being able to get the class the first time they tried to take it.
You are assuming the colleges think this is a problem. Parents may think it’s a problem and students who are locked out of classes may think it’s a problem, but the university gets to sell the same class twice to the same student and makes more money. I doubt they think it’s a problem.
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When I was in college (waaay back in the day) about 1/4 of my Organic Chem I and II classes/labs were students who were applying to med school, so took a 5th year of just these two classes so they could concentrate all their efforts on getting an A. Students may choose a 5th or 6th year for many different reasons.
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It’s very normal for people not to graduate in exactly 12 quarters at my (now) T20 public school, especially among the transfer student population. Depends on who you talk to and where you’re looking.
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Graduation & Time to Degree | UCLA Academic Planning and Budget says that 84.8 of the 2018 frosh entry cohort at UCLA took 12 or fewer quarters at UCLA to graduate. It also says that 73.9% of the 2020 transfer entry cohort took 6 or fewer quarters at UCLA to graduate.
For 2022-2023 graduates, those who entered as frosh took an average of 11.59 registered quarters and 11.92 elapsed quarters, while those who entered as transfers took 6.18 registered quarters and 6.56 elapsed quarters (in other words, more gap quarters than summer quarters).
Graduation rates have been rising, and number of quarters to degree has been falling, at UCLA, probably reflecting higher admission selectivity over time.
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A state university which enrolls mostly subsidized students sees each late-dropped class as a wasted subsidy, and sees a student who takes a course twice due to late drop grade grubbing as a subsidy that it should not be spending. Hence, they are motivated to deter students from late-dropping classes. This is also why some state universities have limitations against taking too many credits before graduating, or have incentive rebates to graduate within the minimum number of credits.
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Federal financial aid is limited to 150% of the program length, so it’s capped at 6 years for the typical undergraduate degree. Students may appeal , and those who have a legitimate reason to take longer will continue to receive aid as long as they stick to an approved program (no changes from the accepted coursework agreement). Those who are just taking classes without actually progressing toward a degree will lose access to federal aid (which typically also prompts the school to stop providing institutional aid). Those who have completed their degree requirements don’t get to just keep taking classes unless they pay completely out of pocket. So the incentive schools have to get students through in six years is financial.
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When I was an undergrad, my college guaranteed that if you stayed on the course program laid out by the college, they would ensure that there was a section of the class available for you to take. Between that and the fact that most scholarships were for 4 years, most of us graduated on schedule.
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Six-year graduation rates were the metric 30+ years ago, too. This isn’t new or suddenly being normalized.
When I attended Carnegie Mellon, I was a student representative on the college’s recruitment and retention task force. We looked at peer-school comparisons, rankings, and other metrics. I distinctly remember the 6-year graduation rate. As a kid needing lots of financial aid, the idea of using more than the allotted time period for scholarships/loans was shocking to me.
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