Nationwide, the problem of college students not graduating in four years is extremely prevalent. These days, graduating in five or even six years is the new normal, which is understandable when you consider all the factors of student life.
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Students already know this. Often times college courses are not offered regularly, so students miss an important prerequisite and get a semester behind. Or a student could be placed in developmental courses, which could extend their time in college.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Even if that weren\u2019t the case, having a full-time load all four years doesn\u2019t necessarily mean you\u2019ll graduate on-time. Full-time for a semester is only 12 credits. After eight semesters, that\u2019s only 96, and UOG students need 124 credit hours to graduate.
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If a student took 15 credit hours a semester, that still only puts them at 120 after four years. It\u2019s possible to graduate on-time if you take intercession classes, but that\u2019s not always financially feasible.
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Plus, most students these days are working while going to school, which makes being a part-time student the only option. Or maybe they have to take a semester off because they have a hold at the Bursar\u2019s office. Student loans are no joke.
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In fact, according to Forbes, \u201cThere are more than 44 million borrowers who collectively owe $1.5 trillion in student loan debt in the U.S. alone. Student loan debt is now the second highest consumer debt category – behind only mortgage debt – and higher than both credit cards and auto loans.\u201d
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Just last year at UOG, the total amount of financial aid given to students was $23,015,378 according to the UOG Factbook.
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According to Deborah Leon Guerrero, Assistant Vice President of Institutional Effectiveness, the different colleges at UOG cater their programs for a four-year completion time.
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\u201cWhen the curriculum is designed, and when the courses are offered, the expectation of the faculty is [to develop] a four year program,\u201d Leon Guerrero said.
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But students still aren\u2019t graduating in four years, because the programs are designed to succeed given that the student is not placed in developmental courses and they declare their major during their freshman year.
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Scott Ishizu, UOG sophomore, plans to graduate in six years. Ishizu came to UOG in Fall 2016 and declared as a business major last semester.
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When I asked him if he thinks UOG helps students graduate in a timely manner, Ishizu replied: \u201cThey try, but with the change [in the Business program], it really messed things up.\u201d
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According to Ishizu, factors like changes in academic programs and times when classes are available prevent him from graduating sooner than six years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because of all the factors aforementioned, and because UOG is an open-enrollment institution, five or six years is a more realistic number for student completion.
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\u201cBecause of open admissions, there’s going to be a portion of that time where [students are] in developmental courses,\u201d Leon Guerrero said. \u201cBut that’s okay, because we are…here to serve the community, right. And so we don’t want to discourage anyone. Just because you’re not college ready doesn’t mean, you’re not able to go to college.\u201d
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Lawrence Camacho, dean of Enrollment Management and Student Success, welcomes open enrollment.
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\u201cIt’s a wonderful thing,\u201d Camacho said. \u201cA lot of those are those first generation students and we’re attracting because it’s an open enrollment. It’s affordable. It’s convenient, it’s here and we want them to come.\u201d
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It\u2019s not a bad thing that students take a little longer to graduate, but compared to national averages, the six-year graduation rates for UOG are alarmingly low. UOG is not completing as many students as it should be.
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According to the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center, the total completion in six years at the same institution for four-year public universities is 54.54%.
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UOG\u2019s six-year completion rate for the 2011 cohort (the highest it\u2019s been in recent years) is only 35.4%. That means only 35.4% of students in that cohort graduated within six years.
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According to Leon Guerrero, UOG compares itself to three different types of universities: open admission peer institutions, an aspirant list (universities that are doing well that UOG aspires to), and off-island schools that a lot of local high school seniors decide to go to.
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Leon Guerrero agreed that UOG\u2019s six-year completion rates are low to national standards, but said they are closer to other open enrollment institutions.
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\u201cThose open enrollment are not really at the 50 [percent], they might be at the 40 percent,\u201d Leon Guerrero said.
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Graduation rates for previous years at UOG, taken from the UOG Factbook, can be seen below:
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