Towards a Comprehensive Predictive Model of Time to Bachelor's Degree Attainment. AIR 2000 Annual Forum Paper.

This study investigated the effects of several variables on time-to-degree using a structural equation modeling approach. It examined influences upon time-to-degree for all students earning Bachelor's Degrees in 1998-99 at one university. Dependent variables were total elapsed semesters to degree attainment and total semesters enrolled. Data on students' time-to-degree, demographic and precollege educational characteristics, remedial course and summer freshman program participation, enrollment behaviors, and academic outcomes were assembled into a series of files and merged with student financial aid data and data from two surveys of students' pre-enrollment perceptions and graduates' undergraduate experiences. Average credit hours per term strongly predicted more rapid degree completion. Transfer credit hours was the only strong predictor of credit hour load per term. Total credit hours earned strongly predicted time-to-degree. A positive relationship existed between number of summer semesters enrolled and longer time to degree. The paper discusses: implications for academic advising concerning student course loads; mixed implications for the role of financial aid speculation over the negligible role of student experience and perception variables on time-to-degree; and recognition that timely degree completion is only one of several desirable student outcomes. (Contains 19 references.) (SM)