When it comes to The University of Alabama’s push to preserve the traditional four-year college completion, DegreeWorks is just one tool in its arsenal.
“I think we’ve already tried, as far as administratively goes, to use advisors on campus to push the ‘Finish in Four’ plan,” pre-health advisor Denise Gonzalez said. “Getting our advisors literate and excited about using DegreeWorks was a huge step in that direction.”
Other than DegreeWorks, there are also Finish in Four plans provided by each department, mandated advising and individual four-year plans. Nationally, some schools are implementing four-year guarantees, which contractually commits students to graduating in four years.
Gonzalez said the big question behind the many policy models is one of responsibility – whether the blame falls on the student or the institution when a student does not graduate in four years.
“With an institution as big as UA, that’s going to be hard to decide. Deciding whom the responsibility falls to would probably be the big step,” she said. “It’s going to be about choosing a model.”
Roy Gregg, director of cooperative education and the professional practice program, said an institution’s attractiveness often hinges on the number of individual options it offers to students, something that requires taking into account each student’s different academic capabilities. This includes relationships with employers, he said, especially for students who are concerned with their overall portfolios.
“I think universities, and particularly ours, are giving students as many options for where they want to go and how they want to get there,” he said. “Each individual student has to determine why he or she is going to college. The outcomes are different.”
Gregg advised engineering students who were pursuing graduate school or different post-undergraduate directions to “graduate as quickly as possible.” Otherwise, the engineering job market often values skill sets more than graduation time, he said.
“Students who are interested in being [immediately] employable need to take stock of how competitive they are at graduation,” he said.
Lee Patterson, a sixth-year senior studying metallurgical engineering, advises students to “do it all in one run, unless [there’s something else] you’re really passionate about.” Patterson took two years off after his freshman year to take a religious mission trip.
“I don’t regret it, but it did have negative consequences as far as my education and finance goes,” he said. “For any reasons other than religious reasons, it wasn’t worth it. I was paying for it, and I wasn’t guaranteed any of my scholarships when I came back.”
Patterson said a four-year guarantee would have greatly affected his undergraduate planning-related decisions, dating back to even selecting a college. He also suggested programs that would allow trips like the one he took to count toward credit – a kind of “religious co-op.”
He had heard of other institutions with strict policies aimed at enforcing the four-year graduation rate. The four-year guarantee, he said, seemed like a good approach, because it offered incentives instead of punishment.
“I guess it’s a step in the same direction in a better way,” he said. “I do think [four-year graduation] is something the school should enforce.”
Ultimately, the future rise of four-year guarantees would not surprise him, especially given trends in university growth. He said the program could be a “good fit” at the University, since it could even help students who were mostly on track, but had minor concerns about summer classes or December graduation.
“Programs like this that help streamline the influx and outflow of students are going to become more relevant,” he said. “I don’t think it would be a dramatic lifestyle change for the majority of the student populate. I feel like if it was implemented, it would be mainstream.”
Gonzalez said four-year guarantees would be an interesting experiment, though she felt some versions of the guarantee would not noticeably impact graduation rates, especially among the pre-health students she advises, whom she said are very driven. In addition, she said some departments might find their co-op and internship programs suffering, like the criminal justice internship program recently axed to promote timely graduation.
“Those who are going to graduate in four years are going to continue to do so,” she said. “I think [the four-year guarantee] would be the extra mile.”
Ultimately, the verdict on the four-year path may not be too unlike the college planning process itself. It’s somewhat of a waiting game.
“It’s still feasible,” she said. “I think we hold on to [the four-year plan] because 50 percent of students are still doing it. We’re trying to see if it’s a matter of students aren’t pushing themselves or if there is a new model. I think we’re in that stage of trying to see if five years is the new norm of four years can be preserved. I think we’re all hoping it’s the latter. I see a lot of kids for whom it’d be feasible to do it in three years.”
