Finish Your Degree on Time to Minimize College Costs

College students often feel that they have no control over the price of their education – and with good reason. College tuition continues to rise at a disproportionately high rate, and this year's higher oil prices will  mean higher transportation and housing costs as well. There seems little that anyone who wants a college degree can do but bite the bullet and pay up.

There is, however, one way to trim education costs that is largely under students' control: finishing your degree on time.

It seems like an obvious step. The sooner you earn your degree, the sooner you qualify for better-paying and more rewarding work. The less time you spend in college, the less money you need for college-related living expenses.

But on average, just over half of college students complete an undergraduate degree in five years or less. The extra time that so many students take to complete their education adds thousands of dollars to their debt burdens and costs additional thousands of dollars in lost income and accrued interest on loans.

There are various reasons why students need additional time to complete a degree. Transfers often lose some academic credit when they move from one institution to another and have to repeat courses to meet degree requirements. Students enrolled in highly structured programs that require courses be taken in a certain sequence may find it impossible to meet the program guidelines and still graduate on time. Students who change majors or who take double majors can also run into scheduling problems.

In some cases, however, delayed degree completion is due to students' choices. Students who 'twirl' among several colleges, picking up a year of credits here and a semester of credits there, are virtually guaranteeing that they will graduate later than they should. Students who opt for minimal course loads, who fail courses, or who repeatedly switch majors are likewise putting themselves in trouble.

Your undergraduate years should be a time for intellectual exploration and experimentation. There can be good reasons for choosing to extend your undergraduate education by a semester or a year, if that is what is necessary to get the educational experience you want. However, stumbling into a situation where you need six or seven years to graduate is a costly mistake whose financial consequences could haunt you for years.

Here are some things you can do to keep on track:

- Think about degree completion time when you select your school and program. Try to find out how long most students take to finish their degrees at each of the schools you are considering. Ask current students whether they have encountered unavoidable problems in getting the credits they need to graduate. Does the school offer enough sections of popular courses? Do students get good guidance about their academic progress?

- Ask yourself how realistic the chances are that you can complete your desired program in four years. Don't just look at course catalogs. Look at class schedules from recent semesters to get an idea of how often the classes you'll need to take are actually offered.

- Talk to your academic advisor about degree completion. They can do a better job of helping you make wise choices about programs and classes if they understand where degree completion fits in to your priorities.

- Pick a path toward a degree and try to stick to it. If you find you have good reasons for wanting to transfer to another school or to change majors, go ahead and do so. But avoid the temptation to flit from school to school or department to department. You'll only drag out the time you need to complete your degree and probably undermine the quality of your academic experience.

- Think about taking summer courses. You may be able to cut your degree completion time by a semester or more by earning some credits during the summer.

-  Think carefully about holding a job while you're in college. Would you be better off using that time to take additional classes, or to study more? Do the hours you have to work limit your flexibility in signing up for morning or evening classes? If all you're getting from your job is a modest hourly wage, you might benefit by dropping the employment for a semester or two and accelerating your progress toward degree completion.