Finishing a degree in two years may be harder than one thought

Spring term is the beginning of the end for MHCC students graduating from their programs as summer term approaches.

For other students, this is not the case. Even though they may have been here for the two years that many people assume it takes to earn a community college degree, they still have further to go.

If you’re wondering why this is, it isn’t such a simple question. Asked how many students graduate within the two-year time frame, Peggy Maas, the manager of admissions, registrations and records, gave a somewhat complex answer.

Maas said, “I know you want me to give a percentage or exact number of how many students graduate in the two-year period but we don’t have that information.” She said the college must prepare an annual report for the federal government that tracks the number of students each year who graduate in 150 to 200 percent of the catalog time, or three to four years.

“We don’t count and report the students who complete degrees in two years because they just don’t do it,” Maas said

This is an interesting fact considering the term “two-year school” and “community college” have become synonymous in everyday conversation. Perhaps this has become the case because referring to a community college as a three-year or four-year school is too dreary of a thought for students. Another question one may pose is, why aren’t students completing their studies in two years?

Data Analyst Ray Christner added some insight when he said, “It’s hard to track when students begin because they often start out in skill building before migrating to an actual program. For those who are in programs we can tell the time frame because they go through a locked step.”

Every term, new students arrive on campus to begin the next step of their educational journey, but many students don’t know where they are going to end up. For some, general prerequisites and random classes of interest fill their schedules. After some serious soul searching and increasing experimentation, a specific program might catch their eye. After declaring a major and entering a specific program, a student’s progress can be more accurately tracked.

With most degrees requiring 90-plus credits, a program can be finished in eight terms if a student is taking 12 credits per term. This would require a student to take summer term classes in each year.

The schedule of an average student oftentimes includes a part- or full-time job as well as a demanding family or home life; this often adds time to how long it will take to complete a program.

That extra time that a student might need to complete their degree can be very discouraging. As a student enters their eighth or ninth term and sees that they are behind by the guidelines established by DARS or the catalog, it is understandable for them to feel discouragement.

These students can feel as though they’re in academic purgatory, seeing others graduating and moving on from the “two-year school” they’ve been attending for three or more years and it can be painful.

But The Advocate would like to remind students that while spending those few extra years or couple terms at MHCC may seem like a stressful experience, they should appreciate the fact that every credit spent here is dollars saved that would have otherwise been spent at a four-year university.

This is especially significant if you are a student who isn’t sure of what career path they want to take yet still want to take that step to further their education.

Why head straight to a university without any plan or idea of what degree you will be working toward when you could attend MHCC, see what options are available to you, and save a couple thousand dollars in the process?

As such, students shouldn’t think of MHCC as a “two-year” school, but rather as a college they can attend at their own pace while still being productive without having to take out loan after loan to pay for ever-increasing tuition costs.

After all, no one wants to be stuck being bombarded with Sallie Mae voicemails for decades to come.