There are numerous reasons why the completion of degree requirements can present a barrier to students’ time to completion. First, some students do not have sufficient information as to what degree requirements must be met and when in their academic careers those requirements should be satisfied. In cases of limited course availability (for example, a course is offered every other year), students may face further delays. This is becoming common in a time of constrained resources and institutional crowding (e.g., more students per cohort).
Within certain majors or programs, “credit creep” has increased time to completion. Many colleges and universities now have degree programs that require more than 120 credits for a Bachelor’s degree, rendering it impossible for students attending full-time to complete in four years, with implications for student and state costs per degree. Several states and systems have begun to examine degree requirements at a system- or institution-level. California, North Carolina, Virginia, Wisconsin, and Maryland, among other states, have conducted credit audits to identify Bachelors degree programs that exceed approximately 128 credits – a credit load that would require full-time enrollment through a tenth semester, or about five years. Many systems are conducting similar audits for Associate's degree programs. The ultimate goal of these efforts is to ensure that all course requirements – both general education and within majors – are relevant for the degree program, even if they exceed the four-year degree footprint.
In many colleges and universities, a 12-credit-per-term course load can be considered full-time. However, students must take a higher credit load to be able to complete a Bachelor's degree, which typically requires 120 credits, or eight consecutive semesters (or the equivalent in a quarter-based system). The structure of financial aid awards, student schedules, and academic planning often complicates the ease of taking a higher credit load than what is considered full-time. Yet, the addition of one course per semester can mean a student completing in four years versus five-plus. It is important that both systems and individual colleges and universities understand their students’ course-taking patterns. However, few institutional research offices and officers are required to run disaggregated analyses to understand their students’ degree completion patterns. Disaggregated time to completion analyses, or a graduation efficiency index study, can point to where completion "tipping points" may lie, or the differences in course-taking patterns of students who take four years versus five or more years to complete degrees.
At the heart of degree progression is students’ ability to complete required courses. Researcher Cliff Adelman identifies excessive course withdrawals, no-credit repeats, and recurring poor performance in courses as factors in extended time to Bachelor's degree. Adelman’s research with NELS data also suggests that success in courses during the first year may be of critical importance, as completing at least 20 credits during the first year of college has strong predictive power for degree completion in a timely fashion. For this reason, many colleges and universities have implemented learning communities and other supports to promote student success, especially for first-year students. Others have offered supplemental instruction, or peer-assisted study sessions for particularly challenging courses, which include introductory-level courses that function as "gatekeeper courses" into major areas of study.
For a full list of Degree/Program Requirments resources from the TTC database, click here.