College Tipsheet

Gary (00:02.75)
It's the Uh-Oh College podcast for November 30th, 2023. Why is a college's graduation rate so important? And how do you ensure that you or your student graduates in four years? Hi, my name is Gary Stocker. I'm the fiduciary for college students, their families, and even college faculty and staff. That means I look out for the best interests of those folks when colleges don't always do so. So graduation rates.

What if your car only worked 50% of the time? What if your doctor was correct only half the time? And your cell phone only completed calls seven out of every 10 times? Not good numbers in either case. And the same logic applies to colleges. But unlike the scenarios that I just shared and they don't happen very much, that bad performance is way too common in colleges.

In too many private and public colleges, there are four-year graduation rates below 50%, in some cases, way below 50%, and six-year undergraduate graduation rates below 70%, and some significantly below 70%. Year after year after year. Now, a plug, our college viability app tracks both.

the four-year graduation rate and the six-year graduation rate for every private and public college in the United States. We even provide free top and bottom graduation reports for every college in the United States. You can see them in the blog at our collegeviability.com website. But if your college doesn't have the systems and processes in place to help you or your students stay on track to graduate in four or fewer years.

Too many of the students will both have higher college costs and will lose potential post-college income because they're still finishing up the needed courses in college. So here's how to reduce the risk of not graduating in four years. First and foremost, create and maintain really a strong relationship with your academic advisor. If they don't want that strong relationship, ask the college for another one.

Gary (02:20.566)
This is critical to make sure you have someone on your side that works for the college, that's paid for the college, that's going to help advocate for you to make sure you get the courses, both the general education and the major specific courses that you need.

Gary (02:36.758)
The combination of those required and elective courses can really put a tight squeeze on four years worth of college course scheduling. Even though it has been many, many years ago, I can remember having challenges like that. And almost every college has a list, they'll provide you in electronic or paper form, of required general education and major specific courses that a student needs to graduate. Make sense? Get that list as soon as you can.

and then go back and match it to the college's most recent course schedule. You can probably see it for the current year that you're in. And then look at that schedule and look ahead into years two, three, and four. And if that schedule is similar for the year you're in now, it should ensure that the courses are not, you'll see it, ensure the courses that you will need are offered frequently enough semester to semester, term to term, and enough times during a given term.

They offer frequently enough that you'll be able to work them into your course schedule and graduate in four or fewer years. On the other side of that, you know, successfully taking 15 credits of, for each traditional semester can result, will result in meeting that graduation requirement in four years, but it's not always the student's schedule that causes delays in the current financially challenged higher education world. Many colleges.

maybe most, are cutting back on the number of sections offered for some to many of their courses. For example, English 101, Math 101, Biology 101. Maybe there used to be six sections each term, each semester, and maybe the college has made the business decision to cut back to four on making up the number. That provides fewer seats in theory and in practice for you or your student to choose from.

Here's the financial reason, the personal financial reason to do this. If you don't graduate in four years, say it takes you an additional six months or maybe a year of courses to finish up, it can cost you a minimum of twenty to forty thousand dollars depending on how long you have to wait and what your compensation would have been. I'm using twenty dollars per hour over the course of a full year that's about forty thousand dollars.

Gary (04:59.41)
And if you can afford to write off that much post-college income, then, you know, be lackadaisical, don't focus on the schedule and run that risk. And there are many, many reasons college graduation rates are so low and we'll discuss those in future podcasts. But the one you can control is matching your gen eds and major courses to the college's schedule and be relentless in making sure your academic counselor checks

and double checks and even triple checks, that schedule to make sure you can graduate in four years. If you have specific questions about this podcast, send them to gary at collegeviability.com. That's one long word, gary at collegeviability.com. And again, this is Gary Stocker with another episode of, Uh-Oh! College. We'll talk next time.