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FEATURE
TAKING AN EXTRA LAP
Those who graduate in four years are a minority at the University of Kansas and administrators are resolute on changing that. But what's preventing students from completing their majors on time?
// PATRICK DE OLIVEIRA
Decisions, decisions — and please be quick. Students often are forced into more-than-four-year graduation plans because they choose to drastically change their majors or because they have to re-start a new major after not being accepted into professional schools.
Photo illustration by Jerry Wang
When I first arrived at the University in the fall of 2005 with 4,121 other freshmen, I thought I had my college career sorted out.
From the start of my freshman year I would take a consistent load of at least 15 credit hours and go to summer school so that I could earn degrees in journalism and environmental studies by Mav 2009.
But on May 17, 2009 — the day I was supposed to graduate — I was at home barbecuing with my roommates while the procession of students made its way down the Hill. A distant relative sent me a congratulatory e-mail and I had to reply explaining why I was taking an extra year to graduate.
I told him that by the middle of the second semester of my freshman year I had realized environmental studies was not for me, so I replaced it with history and added two minors: French and peace and conflict studies. Also, I realized that going back to my home country (Brazil) and visiting friends and family during the summer was worth more than catching up on credit hours. Graduating in four years became impossible.
I'm hardly in the minority. Not many of my friends got to walk down the Hill when their time had come. In fact, in the last 15 years, fewer than one out of three full-time students graduated in four years, despite the University's goal to have most students out on time.
Chancellor Bernadette Gray-Little brought up the issue in her first all-University convocation. She discussed the need to increase graduation rates and explained how the Four-Year Tuition Compact was an incentive to finish up on time.
The University encourages timely graduation because graduation rates are used as a form of accountability, says Marlesa Roney, vice provost for student success. The public perceives schools with high graduation rates as efficient, which brings in investments. Also, taking longer to graduate can be an unexpected expense for students, especially those under the Four-Year Tuition Compact. The compact guarantees a standard tuition rate for four years, but after that it is based on standard tuition. And, as Roney says, history shows tuition never goes down. Increases in in-state tuition in the last 10 years have varied from 2.3 percent to 25.1 percent, and the fact that rates are decided in June before school starts makes financial planning difficult.
Standard tuition already is higher than what the first students enrolled under the tuition contract, freshmen who entered in 2007, are paying.
So students who are expected to graduate in 2011 but end up staying longer can anticipate a price hike in their tuition. Another point students need to consider, Roney says, is that most scholarships only cover four years of school.
TAKING THE TIME TO FIND A PASSION
Chris Gordon, Leawood senior, is part of the majority that is taking longer to graduate. When she arrived at the University in 2006, she thought she would be a design major. She enrolled in the five-year design program and planned to graduate in 2011. But after two and a half years of design school she realized that it wasn't what she really wanted to do. Even though she enjoyed designing, she wanted to work more closely with people than design would allow.
Gordon talked to a friend who recommended nursing. An open house at the KU Medical Center convinced her to follow that path. Nursing combined her passions for working with people and aiding those in need. However, changing majors would add an extra year — totaling six years as an undergraduate. "At first I thought six years would be a long time, but I realized it was worth it because it is something I'm really passionate about," Gordon says.
Gordon dreaded telling her parents about her decision because she didn't want to ask them to spend more money on her education. But, after talking it over, her parents ended up fully supporting her.
Gordon thinks that part of the reason she ended up changing majors was because she was under too much pressure to make a decision in the first
place. "I just jumped into a major without thinking what I wanted to do and why I wanted to do that," she says.
Julianne Kueffer, Overland Park senior, is in a similar situation to Gordon's. She is set to earn her journalism degree in December, after six and a half years of bouncing from major to major. As a freshman in 2003, Kueffer wanted to study journalism, but she soon changed her mind and applied to the School of Fine Arts. It took her a semester to get into the school, and another year to complete the basic requirements. Once she got those out of the way she started studying industrial design.
But then Kuefer panicked. She didn't think she had strong drawing skills and switched to graphic design. Kueffer passed her first review, an evaluation made by professors based on a stu-
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