4 ms·
Less than half of the students from my alma mater graduate within four years. When I learned this I was dumbfounded. The incentives are just not correctly align
by austinl 6y ago
Less than half of the students from my alma mater graduate within four years. When I learned this I was dumbfounded. The incentives are just not correctly aligned. The university is able to profit off of students taking fewer credit hours and staying more semesters, and academic advisors actively encourage this!
- gumby 6y agoI learned (when MIT shut down my former dorm) that they track the six year graduation rate (doubt anyone is attending all of the six years). That seems more sensible.
- WalterBright 6y agoWhen I was in college, there was one (only 1) student who took 6 years to graduate. Students passing by him would often mumble "7 years of college, down the drain!" (I won't spoil the joke, google it!) As I recall, only a small handful took 5 years. This drifting along failing to graduate seems to be a modern phenomenon.
- gumby 6y agoI was class of 1986, graduated 1988 (though TBF I had a full time job in another part of the country for my last two years so taking classes was...complicated). This is undergrads, I know of a grad student who took 13 years (and three theses he refused to submit) until they handed him a PhD and showed him the door. Obviously in his case he didn't lack brains, just had a longstanding psychological issue. Even for those who get doctorates, outside a small number of fields (e.g. CS) there's a long, soul-killing gantlet of post docs and RAs before either a position is obtained or you give up.