<p>Actually, I have re-calculated and she will actually have 4.5 years at the private U, to be added to the 3 semesters of CC & 6 semesters of private HS, so she’s taking an extra year of college altogether and will have had 3 years of HS and 6 years of CC/U. In any case, it works for her & us–no regrets.</p>
<p>Somebody is havng a problem with the defination of “ON-Time” graudation since anything ove 8 semesters is NOT ON TIME. Whether or not the parents can or are will to pay for it doesn’t change the fact that 4 years equals 4 years.</p>
<p>“Should parents plan for the possibility of more than 8 semesters’ of college costs?” is the title of this thread. Perhaps it has changed since it’s inception, but that is what my posts are responding to, rather than anything else. </p>
<p>I know quite a lot of students who go to college for different periods of time than 8 semesters. Unless the U has a guarantee that kids will graduate in 8 semesters of the equivalent, it is a good idea of the parents and student to figure out how any expenses in excess of the 8 semesters (or equivalent) will be funded/financed. People can argue about how realistic (or not) it is for students in particular majors to finish in 4 years, but as a practical matter, it is not that uncommon for students to take longer than 4 years.</p>
<p>S’s college room mate was still a student when S graduated after 4 years & not sure when he graduated. D is still a student, even though she’s now in her equivalent of 5.5 years of college and will have completed the equivalent of 6 years by this spring when hopefully she will get her degree.</p>
<p>It is indeed up to each student and family how they choose to plan and what they want to do in the event that student does NOT get the degree after 4 years of college (or equivalent). Agreements reached ahead of time can minimize conflict and confusion and stress.</p>
<p>It is also helpful to have an agreement for what to do if a student finishes in eight semesters but is unable to gain admission to graduate or professional school, or find a job in their field or area of interest. This can happen for any number of reasons that cannot be predicted when a student enters school as an undergrad.</p>
<p>Students whose parents are willing and able to fund post-bac work or pay living expenses for an unpaid internship, or who are able to take out loans for post-bac work because they are not overwhelmed by undergrad debt, are in a position that is very different from those whose parents tell them they are completely on their own, or who borrowed heavily to go to college on what turned out to be mistaken assumptions wrt their own capacity to continue to do well enough to meet the bar for entry-level employment or graduate or professional school.</p>
<p>True, it IS important to have plans and agreements for what happens with the student when s/he graduates from college. Many times, there may be no immediate job available, it may only be part-time, it may not be in the student’s major, and/or student may not have been accepted into grad/pro school and/or want/need internship. IF family can help ease the transition between college/school and work, that can be very helpful for the student.</p>
<p>We were fortunate that we were able to provide S with no-cost housing while he waited for his security clearance & then his job to start. He used his own savings to travel as well before starting his job.</p>
<p>When the student seeks a job far from home, agreements have to be reached about living expenses, etc. if family is to help.</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus wrote:</p>
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Just looking at Big Ten schools, most do not allow free choice in that at least some majors have a competitive admission process or have requirements greater than just passing the prerequisites:<a href=“I%20added%20bold%20emphasis”>/quote</a></p>
<p>C’mon. I’ve been reading you on here for while and have come to respect your responses, but categorical statements that include words like “most” and “some”? you’re better than that.</p>
<p>Competitive majors and free choice are apples and oranges. You can freely choose to enter a competitive major? When you decide to enter that competition is what we were talking about - and for the few links I bothered to check in your post, all required declaration at least by 72 semester credits or… (drum roll) end of the sophomore year.</p>
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<p>The most selective schools have “4 years and out” policies. A tiny fraction of students are permitted to enroll for more than 8 semesters, and a larger fraction will take a semester or two’s leave of absence, and some will transfer or drop out. But the vast majority graduate in 4 years because of very strong institutional pressure to do so.</p>
<p>Yes, currently we are budgeting 350K per child.</p>
<p>I’ve been reading these posts, and it appears that many posts are off topic. Of course in an ideal world we would all save and plan for contingencies. It would be terrific to plan for 16 semesters if we could. The truth is that the average family has $25K saved for each student. The 529 plans are useless and saving for college has been difficult for most families this last decade. In the best case scenario all students would graduate in 4 years with great grades. But, mental illness, physical illness, other real life situations happen. If a student is being responsible, most families would reasonably help as much as they could. Families with multiple children to put through college may not have that luxury. Parents who need to save for retirement would probably make a better choice throwing the extra expenses after 4 years onto the student who has a career lifetime to pay down the debt.
And the public colleges are not accepting responsibility for graduation rates.
My son was accepted at prestigious University of California campus’s and chose a lesser-known private college. The UC’s had all stated that a computer science major would (these days) need 7 years to graduate because they “were impacted”. That appeared to be honest, but there was an appalling lack of true disclosure. The truth was, they were cutting important classes in his major due to budget cuts.They were packing too many students into limited programs and then “weeding” them out with strict bell curves and unnecessary grade challenges in required core classes.What the UC’s are not discussing is that the usual state and federal aid grants and loans are only for 4 years. There is absolutely no discussion with the family of a prospective freshman on financing those extra years. My son’s private school choice gave him a generous scholarship, guaranteed 4-year graduation, and offers a 5-year Master’s program.They offer a partial scholarship for that 5th year.The room and board charges for the 3-year difference more than made up the cost difference between the private and public school.
If college were treated like any other major purchase in life, there would be strict disclosure laws, competition for consumers would drive the price down and the interest rate on debt would be similar to home loan debt.</p>
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<p>Never saw this complaint on the Berkeley forum, which indicates that it is likely extremely exaggerated. Berkeley has about a 70% four year graduation rate for recent classes, among the highest of public universities. Berkeley also has restrictions against taking more than 8 semesters to graduate, so it is unlikely that a student could actually take 7 years (14 semesters) to graduate. And a look at the current schedule of classes at Berkeley indicates that the CS courses are not 100% full.</p>
<p>I remember when the four year graduation rate was under 40%. But the main reason for the low graduation rate then was student-related:
- More than half of entering freshmen needed remedial English courses (versus under 10% now).
- Many students found the workload too difficult, so they took 12-13 credit units per semester instead of averaging 15 per semester needed to complete the degree in 8 semesters.
- Students generally had much less AP credit.</p>
<p>I am not sure why many parents have budget for 4 years for community colleges while some other parents have negative attitude to 5-year budget for 4 year colleges.</p>
<p>I have seen some parents beg their kids to finish college after 4 or 5 years have passed.</p>
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<p>Community colleges are relatively inexpensive, so extra semesters at a community college cost a lot less than extra semesters at a four year school (an extra semester at a state university might cost as much as two to four extra semesters at a community college). So they may be a good choice for students who need a lot of remedial course work, or who are likely to take longer than four semesters to decide on a major and become ready to transfer to a four year school for four semesters of upper division work.</p>
<p>And I contend; the majority of colleges allow free choice (or make changing relatively painless) through sophomore year. </p>
<p>If you are in a college of arts and sciences</p>
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<p>Administrative ease of changing major does not exempt the student from having to take sequenced prerequisites which can delay graduation if the student did not start taking them early enough.</p>