By: Sam Margolin, Staff Writer
A national non-profit called Complete College America (CCA) has created the “15 to Finish” program for all University of Maine Schools. The organization asks states governors and colleges to take a pledge, “to work with states to significantly increase the number of Americans with quality career certificates or college degrees and to close attainment gaps for traditionally underrepresented populations.”
According to CCA, roughly 50 percent of students in four year programs are taking the required credits to graduate on time. The new program gives students incentives to take 15 credits a semester to raise the four year degree completion rate.
CCA Complete College America has five different “Game Changers” for college students to become more successful: math pathways, prerequisite remediation, structured schedules, guided pathways to success and the 15 to Finish program. Most emphasize the importance of focused and reachable academic goals. The question of how focused and rigid or how open and fluid a college curriculum should be is one that continues to be asked in different ways.
CCA’s goal is to create incentives to increase the amount of students who enroll in 15 or more credits each semester According to CCA, “Incentives can be as simple as preferred parking on campus and as substantial as financial aid policies that reward credit accumulation.”
Beginning with the class of 2021 at USM, any student who receives an honors program scholarship will be required to take 15 credits.
Federal education standards tell students that 12 credit hours is equal to full-time enrollment. But federal full-time does not mean graduating in four years.
Some students never think about what happens if their college careers don’t go according to plan. When a clearer, more focused path is shown during the first year, students will be less prone to falling off track.
“One concern I have as chief academic officer is the number of students nationwide who do not ever complete the college degree they begin….of all the students who begin studying full time at a public, four-year college or university, between 50 and 60 percent finish that degree within 6 years,”said Jeannine Diddle Uzzi, Provost and Vice President for Academic Affairs. “This means that a lot of students pay a lot of money for courses that never lead to a degree, and when students leave school with debt but with no degree, they put themselves in a difficult position.”
If a student takes four classes instead of three in order to meet the program’s standard this could raise the cost per semester. The program tries to combat that with financial incentives.. CCA outlines the importance of making this fourth class accessible and affordable. CCA says that schools should ensure that taking 15 credits does not cost more than taking 12 credits to provide a financial incentive for graduating on a 4 year track.
USM pays out a scholarship for students who need a fifth year to graduate. The university has already paid out around $15,000 this fall alone according to Nancy Griffin, Vice President for Enrollment Management & Student Affairs and the USM’s proponent for the new practice. Not only will the university be saving money, students who practice this program will see long-term savings by graduating on time.
“We want every student to complete their degree and accomplish the goals they set when they applied to USM,” Griffin said. “We are simply trying to save each student time and money by making sure they know how many credits to take to reach their goal.”
USM has been trying to boost its enrollment numbers since President Glenn Cummings took over in 2015. At his inaugural opening breakfast speech, Cummings outlined nine goals for the university to help it become more dedicated to students as well as becoming more financially sustainable.
One of his goals is to bring USM headcount enrollment up from 7,700 to 10,000. According to Griffin, “Enrolment in full-time students has increased 3.47 percent from last fall to this fall. This figure proves that the program is working.”
Some new students seem to know about the program but not about the motivation behind it. “Some classes I needed to take gave me fewer credits than I thought, so as of right now I’m paying for two extra classes to keep my credits where I want them,” said Jasmine DeMoranville, a first-year honors student “Time management is definitely difficult… Having to manage more than four classes is interesting. But academically, and socially, this is a great program. I think the positives outweigh the negatives in this case.”
Other students need the program to help them handle their large workload or special circumstances. “I fully support the new program because it would’ve taken me 5 years instead of 4 years (now) to get my double major in Secondary Education and English plus my double minor in Special Education and Writing,” said Julia Haas, a first year student living in the dorms. This program helps students like Julia be able to take as many majors and minors as she would like.