Quote:
Originally Posted by Edward64
Son is back from college, great to see him again. He'll be going back because he is taking summer school. He transferred after freshman year and so summer school keeps him on schedule to graduate in 4 years.
BTW, what's the deal with 5 year programs that are more common now? From what I've read it's not because students need more classes than before for the degree. It's that more kids are working? My son also tells me it's because its hard to get the classes you need.
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Best I've been able to tell, it's mostly a matter of not being able/willing to pull down the hours needed to finish in the traditional 4 yrs. I don't buy for a minute the "more kids are working" reasoning, in fact its going the other direction.
The National Center For Education Statistics says only 43% of full-time undergrad students were employed in 2017 vs 50% in 2005. Part-time undergrad employment rates are also going down, from 86% in 2005 to 81% in 2017.
Piecing some stats together it looks like
41% graduate within 4 yrs and 60.4% graduate within six years, leaving 40% of take longer/don't graduate.
Best I can tell, that leaves about 20% who get done in the 5th or 6th year, so it's not
that common exactly.
Seems likely that a combination of factors are in play with the "five years to do four" thing, among them a higher percentage of 18-24 in college than historically (meaning more students on the college caliber bubble), a number of students who drop temporarily from full-time to part-time student status based on the low number of hours they're carrying and thus take longer to graduate, and I strongly suspect there's an element of "it doesn't carry the stigma it once did, so why not stretch out the student experience as long as possible?"