Guaranteed Tuition and 4 Year Graduation: Part 2

Guaranteed tuition programs are one way to save money although they probably have a greater effect at public colleges than private ones. The other guarantee program popping up with increasing frequency is a four-year college graduation guarantee. This means that if it takes you more than four years to graduate, the college will pay for the remaining classes needed to graduate. Given that the average four-year graduation rate is less than 50%, this is an appealing offer.

But how good of an offer is it?

There are two common criticisms of the graduation guarantee. The first is that it’s only being offered by schools that already have a high graduation rate. A closer look at the graduation rates of these schools shows that this criticism has little foundation in reality. The average graduation rate of the 88 colleges I’ve identified with guaranteed four-year graduation is 37%. This is little different from the 39% four-year graduation rate reported by the National Center for Education Statistics.

The second knock against such programs is as one parent tells the New York Times, “There seemed to be a lot of reasons for it not to be their fault and to pay for that fifth year.”

These programs do include a list of requirements that should a student fail to meet them, would release the college from its obligation to pay for the remaining classes. But here’s the interesting part, these requirements tend to be things that students should be doing anyway. They include meeting with an advisor, registering early, using degree completion check tools, taking full course loads, and so on.

And here is where I see the value of college graduation guarantees. In the past, especially at public universities, a student could do all the “right” things and still be short a class through no fault of her own. Depending on the bureaucracy, the response was often “tough luck, see you next semester.”

But now if advisors see students are going to have problems meeting the requirements, they have an incentive to provide students with an alternative means to satisfy the requirements. The University of the Pacific states that it will substitute “a different course or an independent study assignment, as determined by the department and the college offering the student’s major.”

The University of Wisconsin states that it may do one of the following:

• identify an alternative means to satisfy the applicable course requirement within the semester in question;
• identify an alternative means to satisfy the applicable course requirement prior to the expiration of the four calendar years covered by the Agreement;
• provide the opportunity to take the required course or an alternative means to satisfy the applicable course requirement at no tuition cost to the student after the expiration of the four calendar years covered by the Agreement.

These graduation guarantees finally put some responsibility on the university to meet its obligations in terms of course availability. Even the fact that certain majors are excluded from the programs is useful information. The student will know that even though it seems like a four-year degree, the chances are it won’t be completed in four years.

So will these programs result in a dramatic increase in graduation rates for the participating colleges?

Not likely.

According to the University of Pacific which has had a program since 1991, they end up paying extra tuition for two students a year. The university’s four-year graduation rate is only 43%.

Winona State University actually dropped its four-year guarantee. The Director of Admissions told The Chronicle of Higher Education that “We never had a student make a claim, so we felt we didn’t need the language to instruct us to be good.”

I’m not sure what he meant by “be good” given that Winona State University’s four-year graduation rate was a consistent 25-26% from 2004 to 2010.

Furthermore, like the tuition guarantee programs, there is a tendency for people to place a higher monetary value than it is actually worth. People see “4 year guarantee” and think “fifth year free!” Too many of those considering a private school think of the guarantee worth $50,000 or more.

The reality is that the college will pay for the tuition of the remaining classes you need to graduate which is probably only one or two. You’re still out for the books and living expenses.

It remains to be seen how effective these programs actually are especially at public universities. Will the cost of tuition for an extra class or two be worth those associated with an effective advising system and ensuring an adequate number of seats for required classes?

Ultimately, it would seem that these programs aren’t a major risk for the offering universities. The horror stories making the news about students not able to graduate because of the lack of classes probably don’t represent the principle reason why students don’t graduate on time. I suspect that those students are easily outnumbered by those who fail a class, have to cut back on classes in order to work, or change majors at a late date.

Four-year graduation guarantees represent even less financial value, the tuition of a class or two, than the tuition guarantee programs. However, for the few students who the colleges accommodate in these programs, it could be a huge difference. Instead of having to pay for the classes and living expenses, they can start being paid by working full-time jobs after graduation.

Below are 88 colleges that offer four-year graduation guarantees that I’ve found as of December 2014. There’s an increase of 11 institutions over last year’s count. The enrollment and graduation numbers are from the DIY College Rankings Spreadsheet. 33 of the schools qualified as 50-50 schools.

Colleges with Four-Year Graduation Guarantees

Name	State	Type	Full-time Under- graduates	4 yr Grad Rate	50-50
Alma College	MI	Private	1378	50	yes
Ashland University	OH	Private	2389	43
Augustana College	IL	Private	2509	73	yes
Baldwin Wallace University	OH	Private	3003	50	yes
Bethel College	KS	Private	482	39
Birmingham Southern College	AL	Private	1167	56	yes
Boise State University	ID	Public	12392	7
Buffalo State SUNY	NY	Public	8293	23
California Lutheran University	CA	Private	2717	52
California State Polytechnic University-Pomona	CA	Public	18409	11
California State University-Fresno	CA	Public	17569	14
California State University-Fullerton	CA	Public	26682	13
California State University-San Bernardino	CA	Public	14499	11
California University of Pennsylvania	PA	Public	5649	36	yes
Cedar Crest College	PA	Private	640	49	yes
Chaminade University of Honolulu	HI	Private	1661	20
Columbia College	MO	Private	9442	32
Concordia University-Nebraska	NE	Private	1126	38
Culver-Stockton College	MO	Private	772	36
Dakota Wesleyan University	SD	Private	698	33
DePauw University	IN	Private	2278	74	yes
Doane College-Crete	NE	Private	1106	60	yes
Dominican University of California	CA	Private	1298	38
Eastern Illinois University	IL	Public	7327	33	yes
Florida Southern College	FL	Private	2126	47
Fort Hays State University	KS	Public	5449	17
Fresno Pacific University	CA	Private	2126	48
Green Mountain College	VT	Private	573	31
Hamline University	MN	Private	2087	54	yes
Indiana State University	IN	Public	9131	22
Jacksonville University	FL	Private	2195	27
Juniata College	PA	Private	1555	71	yes
Kentucky Wesleyan College	KY	Private	621	25
Lebanon Valley College	PA	Private	1648	67	yes
Manchester University	IN	Private	1179	44
Medaille College	NY	Private	1586	36
Midland University	NE	Private	1164	38
Milwaukee School of Engineering	WI	Private	2284	36
Minnesota State University-Moorhead	MN	Public	5107	21
Montana State University	MT	Public	11012	20
Nebraska Wesleyan University	NE	Private	1605	51	yes
Northern Arizona University	AZ	Public	18769	30
Ohio Northern University	OH	Private	2194	51	yes
Portland State University	OR	Public	15115	16
Randolph-Macon College	VA	Private	1295	49	yes
Regis College	MA	Private	948	41
Regis University	CO	Private	2541	47
Saint Mary's College	IN	Private	1469	74	yes
Saint Norbert College	WI	Private	2114	65	yes
Sierra Nevada College	NV	Private	529	37
Southern Virginia University	VA	Private	640	19
St Catherine University	MN	Private	2188	39
Sterling College	KS	Private	595	20
SUNY at Fredonia	NY	Public	4958	48	yes
SUNY College at Oswego	NY	Public	6949	38	yes
Texas Tech University	TX	Public	24338	37	yes
The College of Saint Scholastica	MN	Private	2423	57	yes
Transylvania University	KY	Private	1069	68	yes
Trine University	IN	Private	1429	32
Unity College	ME	Private	546	36
University at Buffalo	NY	Public	18176	44	yes
University of Arkansas at Little Rock	AR	Public	5552	7
University of Arkansas at Monticello	AR	Public	2493	13
University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff	AR	Public	2300	8
University of Arkansas-Fort Smith	AR	Public	5116	9
University of Colorado Boulder	CO	Public	23853	42	yes
University of Colorado Denver	CO	Public	7650	18
University of Iowa	IA	Public	19522	47	yes
University of Maine at Farmington	ME	Public	1783	41	yes
University of Minnesota-Crookston	MN	Public	1305	31
University of Minnesota-Duluth	MN	Public	8989	28	yes
University of Minnesota-Morris	MN	Public	1815	47	yes
University of Minnesota-Twin Cities	MN	Public	28940	50
University of Nebraska at Kearney	NE	Public	4777	22
University of Nebraska at Omaha	NE	Public	9511	14
University of Nebraska-Lincoln	NE	Public	18102	29	yes
University of Northern Iowa	IA	Public	9330	38	yes
University of the Pacific	CA	Private	3780	43
University of Wisconsin-Madison	WI	Public	28237	53	yes
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee	WI	Public	18789	14
University of Wisconsin-Stout	WI	Public	6782	18
Vanguard University of Southern California	CA	Private	1577	45
Virginia Wesleyan College	VA	Private	1348	42
Washington & Jefferson College	PA	Private	1318	70
West Texas A & M University	TX	Public	5521	24
Western Illinois University	IL	Public	8805	31	yes
Western Michigan University	MI	Public	15879	24
William Jewell College	MO	Private	1011	61	yes

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