Students need to start planning from the very beginning of their entrance into the university. If the student knows his or her area of study exactly, constructs a plan, and follows that plan strictly, then the student will have no problem graduating in a timely fashion, according to Ball State associate provost Beverley Pitts. Problems arise when a student strays from that plan. If a student continually drops courses, or is forced to repeat course work, then that student can count on increasing the length of the stay on campus either through summer school or an additional semester. We did a study a couple of years ago to look at all of our bachelor's degrees to see if students could finish in four years, and they can.
Many students take more than four years because they're doing a lot of other things, too.
One of those factors is the sheer number of students working at least part-time while in college. Staying on track and in sequence becomes very important to the student, reminds Pitts. Many Ball State programs are sequenced so that if a prerequisite class needs to be repeated, a student runs into difficulty when the class might be offered only during the fall term. Likewise, if a student drops a class early in a semester, he or she often fails to see beyond the present. The student still needs to receive those credits and it often adds more time at the end a college career.