Stopping out of college not only extends the amount of time it takes to get a degree but is also associated with taking more semesters overall to complete, a report released Thursday by the National Student Clearinghouse Research Center shows.
“Stop outs were a major driver of longer completion times,” states the report, titled “Time to Degree” and described by its authors as a “more detailed view” of students’ educational journeys. It says students who stop out end up spending more time “actively enrolled” in order to get their degrees.
“In other words, students who stopped out enrolled additional terms after returning from a stop out to complete compared to those who did not stop out,” the report states.
For bachelor’s degree earners, a stop out added about a year-and-a-half to the median time to degree – bringing it to 5.1 years compared to 3.7 for students with no stop outs, the report states. A second stop out took the median time to 7.3 years.
Active enrolled time for bachelor’s degree earners rose from 3.7 years for those with no stop outs to 4.0 years for those with one stop out; 4.3 years for those with two stop outs and 4.7 years for those with three stop outs.
The report states that Black, Native American and Native Hawaiian/Pacific Islander students were more likely than other groups to stop out before completing a credential; with more than half of associate and certificate completers and one-third of bachelor’s degree completers from these groups stopping out at least once, the report states.
