The Four Years Fallacy Four-Year vs. Six-Year Bachelor’s Degree Completion Rates
In this brief, we examine the extent to which colleges’ four-year completion rates differ from six-year completion rates to determine whether the current focus on six-year rates may be limiting the ability of students, families, counselors, and higher education institutions to make well-informed decisions about college enrollment.
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This brief addresses three questions: 1) How many immediate college enrolleescompleted a bachelor’s degree within four vs. six years? 2)For bachelor’s degree completers who took longer than four years, how many terms were they enrolled before completing their degree? 3) How different were four-year and six-year bachelor’s degree completion rates by college attended, by high school attended, or by student characteristics?
From the moment students enroll, colleges immediately group students based on their 4-year track to graduate. Although colleges advertise getting a bachelor's degree in four years, research shows that more than half of students need more time to graduate. This disconnect drove us to interview six CPS alums on their timeline through college. As first-generation students, they share their lessons and hopes for how schools can adapt to support students to graduate on their own timeline.
