News-Letter

Media Credit: Conor Kevit President William Brody addresses the graduating class of 2008 at commencement ceremony.

In the face of rising tuition prices, students look to save money on the cost of a university education. One particularly popular option at Hopkins has been to finish Bachelor's degrees a semester, or even a year early.

According to statistics provided by Hopkins, in the graduating classes of 2005 through 2008, an average of 15 percent of students graduated at least a semester early.

An opinion piece in the Nov. 14 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education, which suggested that three-year diplomas become a standard option at major universities to mitigate the expense of primary degrees, reported 20 percent of Hopkins students graduate at least a semester early.

"There is a wide variety of students who have chosen to graduate early...in past years people looking to go into finance have looked into it. We've also had a number of pre-med students who looked into this option," Senior Associate Director of the Career Center Dawna Milligan said.

Administrators and advisors emphasize that there are various problems with early graduation, including the logistic difficulty of cramming all the required credits into fewer than four years of college.

"In general, it is much harder for engineering students to finish in fewer than eight semesters, and generally harder for pre-meds and science majors than for social science or humanities majors," Vice Provost and Dean of Undergraduate Education in the Krieger School or Arts and Sciences Paula Burger wrote in an e-mail.

Despite that, pre-meds still find ways to fulfill credit requirements in order to cut tuition costs.

"When I first came to Hopkins, and even at the beginning of this semester, I planned to stay for all four years, but [tuition] became more and more of a burden on my family so this became a good way to help out," said John Cheng, a senior pre-med, neuroscience major who will graduate at the end of this semester.

Cathy Koh, a junior international studies major who plans to graduate at the end of this year, and Danielle Ernst, a senior math major with minors in entrepreneurship and management and psychology who plans to graduate this semester, both cited financial reasons as their primary consideration in making the decision to graduate early.

Continued...

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