In the past year, the proportion of undergraduate students who finished their degrees in four years rose to an all-time high of 70 percent.
The increase in the four-year graduation rate is tied to many factors, including the rising cost of education, the administration’s initiatives to streamline academic curricula, and increased competition among applicants, said Robert Cox, the manager for institutional research at the UCLA Office of Analysis and Information Management.
According to Cox’s office, this statistic is calculated from those who began their undergraduate career in fall of 2006 and graduated by summer of 2010.
This change represents a 3 percent increase from the previous year’s 67 percent, a number that held steady for the past five years, Cox said.
Typically, a portion of students stay at least an extra quarter in their fifth year before they graduate, said Judith Smith, dean and vice provost for undergraduate education. An increase in the number of students who graduate in four years is an important goal for the administration since it increases access to UCLA for first-years, she said.
With more than 80,000 applications to UCLA this year, it becomes even more important for current students to graduate in a timely manner to make room for more first-years, she added.
As the four-year graduation rate has increased, the school has also seen the near-elimination of over-enrollment of California residents, Cox said.
For the 2009-2010 academic year, UCLA enrolled almost 1,000 more California residents than its budget-based target number. However, the decrease in over-enrollment has left UCLA as one of two UC campuses with nearly no over-enrollment, Cox said.
The most important contribution to the decrease in over-enrollment was the rise in the four-year graduation rate, which meant the school had fewer California residents enrolled than anticipated, Cox said.
“Every year as we do planning models and set targets, we do that with the expectation of how many people will graduate or leave,” Cox said. “We were surprised when that four-year rate went up, so several hundred people left who we thought were going to come back.”
Another reason for the decrease is that the UC increased UCLA’s target enrollment, which lowered the enrollment rate on a technicality, not because the school accepted fewer students, Cox said. The number of new in-state students and summer school enrollment were also lower than expected.
Though this year’s enrollment target has not yet been determined, UCLA expects to maintain its enrollment level for California residents for the current application cycle, said Vu Tran, director of UCLA undergraduate admissions and relations with schools.
According to Cox, the past 10 years have seen a steady decline in the percentage of people who finish with double majors and an increase in the percentage of people who finish with minors.
In addition, many departments reduced their upper-division requirements as part of Challenge 45, the College of Letters and Science’s initiative to challenge departments to reduce upper-division requirements to 45 units.
As a result, many students would have found it easier to graduate earlier because of fewer major requirements, Smith said.
With applications to the UC at an all-time high, competition among applicants has also increased. About 25 percent of admitted first-years start their first quarters already carrying more than 45 units from Advanced Placement courses taken in high school, which means they arrive at UCLA with sophomore standing, Cox said. Students are also attending summer classes more, which allows them to finish their coursework earlier.
“It costs more to go to UCLA than it ever has before, and that really lights a fire under people,” Cox said. “At some institutions, rising fees makes students drop out, but at UCLA, it just makes people work harder and faster.”