How much does a low graduation rate bother you?

HPuck35
Fri, 16 Sep 2011 14:56:33 +0000

Bigger schools with large departments don’t always equate into good class availability. My son attended a medium/large school and was in a large relatively large department. He found that getting into the first of a sequence class was sometimes difficult. The first class acted as a gate and the subsequent ones in the sequence were available. Ended up taking him 5 years to graduate.

Department head discussed this issue at the parent welcome meeting his freshman year. Said the 4 year grad rate was 15% while the 5 year grad rate was 85%. He claimed that they were working to better the 4 year grad rate, but with budget cuts my son reported it was getting worse.

Son’s school was a CA state college. Tuition started off being somewhat cheap. It has been going up by leaps and bounds recently. Problem is tuition is only part of the problem. You have housing and food expenses, as well as an additional year of tuition costs, to deal with. You also have the year delay in starting your career or grad school.

Daughter was accepted to several CA state schools and an OOS private school. The private school, while definitely more expensive per year, offered her some decent scholarship money and their 4 year grad rate is quite good. I figured that the 4 year private was actually less money than the 5 year state school. She choose the private school and with all the tuition increases that are coming along, I’m glad she did.