How do US universities work with regards to this? In the UK you don't really need to pass anything to graduate. I've got a BA (Hons), the BA I got for showing up, the (Hons) indicates I actually passed something.
Second I would guess the vast majority of drop outs are within the first 6 months? How many people are going to waste 6 years for nothing?
Graduating does not count as dropping out. Since a 4 year degree does not require completion within 4 years, it makes sense to extend the statistics longer. That way you include people who tried to spend extra time to be able to graduate.
Yep. The 4-year graduation rate isn't great, but almost everyone gets there eventually. I know plenty of people who just kept plugging away, dropping classes in the 10th week if they were going to fail. One extreme outlier took 17 years.
"Barely half of first-time, full-time bachelor’s degree students graduate within six years; for part-time or community college students, that share is even lower."
Observation from UK: that just would not fly here. Including mature/part time students.
It's still pretty difficult for many Americans to finish university.
Only 55% of students that start at a 4-year university program graduate within 6 years. Only 19.5% of students that start at a non-flagship, 4-year program finish on time.
BS degrees in the UK are a little different than in the US, 3 years is standard because a lot of what would be first year coursework in the US is covered and credited by their GCSE/GCE exams(somewhat similar to to how you can test out of lots of first year credits in the US with AP tests).
In any case I've never seen anyone with a UK degree have any difficulty having it being equated to a US degree for hiring purposes, and that online CS degree from University of London specifically requires 30 hours of college credit from US students so it still comes to 4 years in the end.
There is a huge selection bias in these groups. 3.5 years without graduating is likely to be students who are doing poorly since if you were a top tier student you aren't going to quit 0.5 years off from a degree under most circumstances. People quitting university after 3.5 years most often have a number of failed courses and aren't 0.5 years from a degree.
When I was in college, there was one (only 1) student who took 6 years to graduate. Students passing by him would often mumble "7 years of college, down the drain!"
(I won't spoil the joke, google it!)
As I recall, only a small handful took 5 years. This drifting along failing to graduate seems to be a modern phenomenon.
US is pretty dismal at graduation rates overall - Department of Education is not even tracking the percent of graduates completing a 4-year degree in 4 years anymore, instead preferring a generous 6-year completion metric for a 4-year degree, which stands at 59% https://nces.ed.gov/fastfacts/display.asp?id=40
41% of all US undergraduate students have nothing material to show 6 years down the road except for the mounts of student debt. The quoted figure of 22% of those debts being in some kind of default starts looking optimistic.
Your presumption that all education systems are similar to your own is not valid, relative value or effectiveness not withstanding. The reality is there are quiet distinct differences generally and between US and Uk in particular.
In the US, a bachelors degree takes 4 years, consists of extensive 'general education' requirements outside of the emphasis area, and generally start with intro courses that are more in depth than what would have been studied in high school. So a background in the particular area is not required.
College graduate is a broad classification. There are graduates who would be a huge benefit to any country but there are some who would not be.
It is very clear before they get to UK there is not a right to stay past graduation.
*technically, the 4th is an 'honours' year, and you can graduate without honours after 3 years. This isn't that common for people who aren't struggling.
Something similar applies to the UK, at least when I went to university there. Almost everything comes down to exam results on a particular day with (essentially) four years of prep work leading up to that day.
Each university publishes the grades they will accept at a minimum for each major so you essentially choose your major at 17, or really 15 as mentioned above, because you need certain subjects with an “A” result to enroll at the university.
At uni itself, almost all classes are mandatory for a given major with only one or two chances to take an elective. Failing a class at any point usually means either dropping out completely or being moved to a less prestigious major (e.g. “general science” instead of a CS degree).
A large percent of students never get a degree. Here’s the best statistics that I could find. It talks about 6 year graduation rates but I think a large percent of those who don’t graduate within 6 years never graduate.
In the US private universities do not use the first 1-2 years as filters deliberately. It’s common to see 4 year graduation rates above 90% especially for schools like Harvard
How do US universities work with regards to this? In the UK you don't really need to pass anything to graduate. I've got a BA (Hons), the BA I got for showing up, the (Hons) indicates I actually passed something.
Second I would guess the vast majority of drop outs are within the first 6 months? How many people are going to waste 6 years for nothing?
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