The time required to complete a post-secondary degree is increasingly exceeding the traditional four-year period. The need for an additional fifth — or even sixth — year of school is such a common occurrence that students have dubbed it “the victory lap.”
In light of the five-year phenomenon, some colleges and universities are introducing a new initiative called the Four Year Degree Guarantee.
In the United States, approximately 15 private colleges guarantee students that they will complete their degree in four years, provided that they stay on top of coursework and meet with advisors regularly. If the school does not hold up its end of the bargain — if courses are unavailable or if poor guidance is given — the university will cover all tuition costs until the degree is completed.
The University of Calgary is the only school in Canada to currently offer a Four Year Degree Guarantee, and U of T has yet to adopt a similar initiative.
According to U of T media relations director Laurie Stephens, students decide to take a “victory lap” for a number of different reasons.
“At U of T, many students elect to extend their undergraduate education by enrolling in co-op programs, taking a Professional Experience year, doing a year of international exchange or taking time off for personal reasons,” she says.
Some programs at the undergraduate level are designed to stretch over five years, such as the Concurrent Teacher Education Program offered at the OISE. Other students find their true academic calling only after one or two years spent studying another subject altogether.
However, some students claim that poor course selection and limited class enrollment, among other things, force them to complete an unplanned fifth year of studies at great financial and personal costs.
Ellen Chang, a fourth-year visual arts major, plans on returning to U of T next fall for an additional semester and possibly even a full year.
“Visual studies offers about 10 courses per year with over 200 students vying for 25 spots in each of these courses,” she says. “A lot of people have trouble getting into courses and end up staying five or six years.”
Some, however, believe that completing a degree in more than four years could be beneficial.
Fifth-year political science major Jessie Russell began her studies at U of T with the intention of completing her BA in five years.
“I wanted to be able to work part-time while I studied, so I had always planned on taking three to four courses per year,” she says. “The fact that I could pay per course really benefited me because I could work and study simultaneously.”
Chief spokesperson for CUPE 3902 James Nugent agreed, saying that longer years spent completing a degree allows for critically important research.
“Research in many disciplines requires extended experiments, learning a new language, overseas fieldwork, etc., which simply cannot be done in four years,” he says.
Despite the benefits, however, graduate students have seen funding towards their research plummet through the years.
“We increasingly see the administration taking research grant/fellowships away, forcing grad students to conduct their dissertation research for free while at the same time having to shoulder the burden of new RA responsibilities,” Nugent says.
CUPE 3902 is currently asking the U of T administration to reinstate the Doctoral Completion Grant (DCG). The DCG, which was eliminated last spring, was a special tuition rebate that reimbursed fifth and sixth year graduate students for a portion of their tuition.
“Our union is currently asking the administration to continue funding graduate students for their dissertation research so that they are not forced to do hundreds of hours of new work responsibilities if they don’t want to,” Nugent said.
Ultimately, for Nugent and for many students, the issue can be boiled down to financial concerns. For instance, students who have taken more than four years to complete their program do not qualify for the recently announced 30 per cent tuition grant.
“We need to ensure that adequate dissertation-related funding is available to graduate students so that they can focus on their research.”
