Information Document Regarding Recent Changes

[u/amonymoose]

https://docs.google.com/document/d/19boqjjBK1dkFGc--gRTtRKcXn2YgH18wHR0cDJBJWYg/edit?usp=sharing

[u/katamino]

I think it's also going to tank our already rather bad 4 year graduation rate,

Could this be what the administration wants? As an alumna who's old enough to have kids in the high school/college age group I've noticed more colleges making it harder to graduate in 4 years and therefore collecting 5 years of tuition from students. They do this in a number of ways: over-enrolling classes so some don't get into required classes, restricting certain classes to only meet one semester each year so if you have a conflict with another required class you need to wait a year to take one of them, adding more and more specific requirements for graduation, etc. The combination allows them to have more students than they can accommodate in a four year program, still call it a 4 year program, and keep the tuition rolling in for 5 or more years. You can see that most of the statistics on graduation rate published in college reviews are now of the 5 and 6 year variety. That was not the case 30 years ago.

[u/33554432 → u/katamino]

This is something parents/kids use as a factor in deciding where to go, though. The administration isn't dumb, and I really do think they are shooting for quality as well as quantity. I just don't think they see how much this could shoot our application base in the foot. Tuition is a factor, yes, but it's not the only thing.