By snoadmin
According to a report released last week, students are taking longer than usual to graduate from college. Over half of the full time students are taking at least five years to graduate, some even taking six years.
Increased tuition and budget cuts have made it even harder to complete college on time. Required classes for some majors have become harder to enroll into, and students with jobs may be having trouble juggling school and work with the limited availability of classes.
Most students enter college expecting to finish in four years, but in recent years it seems that this is no longer the norm. The five-year plan is becoming more acceptable — and even necessary, and some people take even longer if they add a minor or a second major.
This brings up the question of whether or not this is our fault or the school’s. In some ways, the school is to blame. Budget cuts have made required classes smaller and more limited. Sometimes a required course is only offered once or twice a year, making it difficult to schedule if it’s up against another required course or disrupts the student’s work schedule. The school simply can’t afford to run a class that only has about 10 students in it, such low enrolled classes often get cut even if they’re necessary.
The school also has a vested interest in keeping students here longer. The longer we stay in school, the more we pay. In this economy, the school needs as much money as it can get, and an extra semester or two per student brings in a lot of cash.
On the other hand, some of this is the student’s fault. Changing attitudes toward the importance of graduating may be a contributing factor to this problem. In the past, graduating in four years was a given, and people did whatever they needed to do to fit everything into their schedules. Some students need to get their priorities straight and make sure that they’re on track. A lot of students don’t like taking classes on Fridays or early in the morning, even if it is necessary in order to complete school on time.
The students who complete college in four years these days are usually the ones who came into college with a clear plan on what they wanted to major in, and what classes they need to take. If a student changes majors once or twice over the course of their college career, it is almost impossible to finish in less than five years.
An emphasis on advising would help to solve this problem. Mandatory advising for all students each semester would help to keep everyone on track and make sure that people aren’t wasting time. Advising is a huge help when it comes to choosing classes, and would help to weed out the students who aren’t taking things seriously.
Another way to solve this would be to re-evaluate the graduation requirements for some majors. If students are taking too long to graduate, then maybe some of the requirements could be changed to make sure everyone can finish on time.
With the cost of tuition increasing every year, the school may need to adjust graduation requirements based on what the university can offer so that students can graduate faster. It may not be possible to hold us to the same standards as students from the past that had more opportunities to get the classes they needed at times that worked for them.
If people are paying for six years to get a degree that is supposed to only take four, there is obviously a problem. Maybe part of the reason college was such a convenient investment before was because of the four-year investment. It’s hard for students now to commit and invest in five to six years of school.
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