JOIN USEarn a degree in four years
Each incoming freshman at Randolph-Macon College, United States, this year was eligible to take part in a brief signing ceremony.
The new student, along with a parent and the college president, could sign a special agreement that is emerging at some colleges and universities: As long as the student keeps up with academic work and meets regularly with advisers, the college guarantees that earning a degree there will take no more than four years.
If it fails to hold up its end of the bargain — if required classes are not available, or if advisers give poor counsel — the college promises to cover the cost of additional tuition until the degree is completed.
Four-year degree guarantees, as they have become known, are being offered at a growing number of smaller private colleges. They work as a marketing tool, giving colleges a way to ease parents’ fears that their children might enjoy college enough to stick around for five or six costly years. And they help to focus attention on the task at hand: graduating in four years.
Randolph-Macon began offering its guarantee this year; Baldwin-Wallace College, outside of Cleveland, will offer it next fall, becoming the latest of about 15 schools where it is available.
“It does give you peace of mind that the school is paying attention to this,” said Debbie Wileer of Warrenton, Va., who was on campus this month with her son, Chris Kruchten, to sign the guarantee. “Now they have a vested interest in having Chris graduate in four years, too.”
“The four-year graduation guarantee is an approach we will see more private colleges take in coming years,” said Tony Pals, a spokesman for the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities. “More students and parents want assurance that their tuition payments are going to be worth it.”
According to federal Department of Education figures, about 80 per cent of undergraduates earning degrees at private colleges and universities do so within four years; at public institutions, where tuition is typically lower, it is 50 per cent. Colleges with guarantees typically find ways to hedge the risk that they will have to cover a student’s tuition.
First, most promise to pay only if the extra year is the result of a problem they caused — a required class not offered when the student needs it, for example. A student who changes his major halfway through senior year, fails courses or goes backpacking through Europe for three semesters would generally not qualify.
The University of the Pacific, in California, was a pioneer of the guarantee, offering it for the first time in 1991. It winds up paying extra tuition for perhaps two students each year, said Robert J Alexander, the school’s associate provost for enrolment. “We’ve incentivised ourselves to do everything in our power for students to graduate in four years,” Alexander said.
Kristin Hammarstrom, a senior engineering major at Pacific, said her adviser recently noticed that she was a unit short of credits to graduate on time this May, and proposed several ways to catch up. “They’ve never really had to pay out because it’s set up so they don’t have to,” she said.
Nationally, the four-year guarantee is still an experiment in its early stages. Many colleges began to offer the programme in 2008 or later, meaning that students in the first incoming class have yet to have a chance to graduate.
Embraced mainly by private colleges, including Juniata College in Huntingdon, Pa., and Virginia Wesleyan College, the four-year guarantee is offered by a few public institutions as well, like California State University, Fullerton and Western Michigan University. The math of the deal works out well for colleges: For their cost — tuition payments valued at perhaps $60,000 at a private college — they gain allure in the eyes of many more families who are considering enrolling, but who might be put off by the prospect of an open-ended high price tag.
Robert R Lindgren, the president of Randolph-Macon, said he expected the guarantee to attract enough students to help fill a new residence hall that will house 108, bringing in about $3 million per year in tuition.
“We have another residence hall being built in two or three years,” Lindgren said. “I think this is going to provide additional students for us. It’s not unique, but it’s a reason we hope to get people to consider us on the front end, and not say, ‘Privates are too expensive.”’
Recruiters at Baldwin-Wallace in Berea, Ohio, made sure to mention its new four-year guarantee this summer while prospective students were visiting. Reaction among recent visitors was mixed.
Keith Fredriksen of Hamburg, NY, who toured the school with his daughter Lauren, saw the guarantee as a marketing tool that would not factor into the application process. “There seemed to be a lot of reasons for it not to be their fault and to pay for that fifth year,” he said.
But Joe Nist, a retired policeman from North Canton, Ohio, said his ears perked up when he learned of it as he toured the school with his daughter, Sarah. “I have a son who took a little better than five to graduate, and the expense is enormous,” he said. “They’re doing things to make it consumer-friendly. It definitely will affect our decision.”