An alert EMUTalk.org reader suggested that I post a link to this interesting Inside Higher Ed story, “Why They Take So Long.” Given the discussion we had last Fall (this post, for example), I thought I’d share this piece, which has a real ring of truth given the nature of EMU. Here are the opening paragraphs:
Students who take too long to earn bachelor’s degrees are the frustration of parents, college leaders and policy makers alike — who see the six-year bachelor’s degree (or longer) as being more expensive for all involved, and particularly wasteful when many campuses are bulging due to increased enrollments.
A new study (abstract available here) from the National Bureau of Economic Research suggests that the growth in the length of time needed to earn bachelor’s degrees is indeed real and cause for concern. But the study finds that the shift, over recent decades, to longer time-to-degree rates is not uniform across colleges, but is concentrated among students who enroll at less competitive four-year public institutions and at community colleges. Further, the analysis finds likely links between longer time-to-degree rates and resources, both of institutions and of students.
I think the concluding paragraph also has a heavy ring of face-value “truth” to it, too:
Resource gaps also extend to the students at the different types of institutions — with those outside of the elite institutions more likely to work longer hours in jobs, limiting the time they can devote to their educations.
“The sum total of our evidence points strongly toward the central role of declines in both personal and institutional resources available to students in explaining the increases in time to baccalaureate degree in the U.S.,” the authors conclude. “That these increases are concentrated among students attending public colleges and universities outside the most selective few suggests a need for more attention to how these institutions adjust to budget constraints and student demand and how students at these colleges finance higher education.”
In other words, to quote another line from this article, “those who want students to graduate more promptly need to talk about money.” And when you think about the money, it’s not surprising that students at more elite institutions– who tend to not work as much and/or be “elite” in terms of class themselves– graduate earlier.
