The vast majority of college students aren't completing their degrees on time, largely due to a lack of guidance and too many choices.
A new report from the nonprofit Complete College America argues two-year and four-year degrees are "little more than modern myths" considering how few students actually finish their degrees in that amount of time.
"The reality is that our system of higher education costs too much, takes too long and graduates too few," the report says.
For federal reporting purposes, colleges measure graduation at 150 percent of the time it should take to complete a degree – typically six years for a bachelor's degree and three years for an associate degree. Graduation rates at the institutional level also could be inaccurate because only first-time, full-time students are counted; transfer students, part-time students and those who are returning to college after time off aren't included. The National Student Clearinghouse – which tracks more than just first-time, full-time students – found the six-year graduation rate for students who started in the fall of 2006 was 60.5 percent at public four-year colleges, and 62.5 percent at private nonprofit colleges. Meanwhile, the Department of Education reports that 59 percent of students who started at any four-year institution in the fall of 2006 graduated by 2012.
Setting later cutoffs for graduation benchmarks may help improve outcomes because it captures students who take longer to complete, but it also "signals an acceptance of the status quo and alleviates the pressure to change," the report says.
Read more at U.S. News & World Report: http://www.usnews.com/news/blogs/data-mine/2014/12/01/report-too-much-freedom-hurts-college-graduation-rates