Lorena Ordonez

November Edition

November 3, 2010

The High Road

            With the economy knee deep in disaster, parents are scratching their heads trying to figure out how on earth they’re going to be able to pay more than $38,000 in college tuition. Some students make it easier on their parents and themselves by taking college level classes in high school. The more driven ones start in their junior year and by the time graduation rolls around, they can have a full year of college completed. 

But not everyone has the time to do this in high school so some colleges have figured out ways to help these high achieving young minds how to save money by offering three programs for various degrees, this way students have the possibility of finishing college in three years instead of four. These programs are designed to encourage those who show the potential to complete the fast tracked, and often challenging, course load. Some degrees require heavy year round work, so it’s not made for everyone and is not offered in every major. Admissions officers also weed out unlikely candidates at the beginning of their freshman year.

A full year of tuition and fees amounts to a lot of money, but some experts warn that any student who decides to take on a three year early graduate program must be aware that in almost all universities, declaring a major as a freshman is required. Asking an eighteen year old what he plans to do with his life might not be the greatest idea, so any applicant must be serious about their studies.

Not a lot is keeping college costs down, so more money savvy parents are keeping this new idea under careful consideration as their college-bound teens finish high school. Before the recession, this new proposal didn’t really catch on here in the US as opposed to colleges in Europe, where that’s completely normal, but now that the economy is in a bind, people are taking a second look.

With the buzz the three year programs are generating, more and more universities are adding it to their curriculum. Plenty of graduates agree that although they are glad they finished school in less time, college is a chance to try new things and a lot opportunities to study abroad and explore subjects unrelated to their field pop up throughout, so students should really focus on what they want out of their college experience before deciding to cut it short.