Exploring the Effects of Student Course Withdrawals on Time to Graduation

Persistence and retention of undergraduate students remain serious concerns in engineering education. The first two years in which students are enrolled in the gateway math, science, and engineering courses are a period when many students chose to switch out. Universities are under increasing pressure to educate students more effectively in terms of cost and time. This is particularly true for Colleges of Engineering which have seen the time to graduate with a bachelor’s degree increase over time as the material judged to be important has expanded; more students begin college less academically prepared to advance steadily; and students are more mobile often transferring between schools or taking classes part time while working. The frequency of students withdrawing from classes has also increased over time. The academic policies governing course withdrawals can affect these trends. This research paper discusses the effects on time to graduation of undergraduate engineering student patterns in course withdrawals. Engineering student course enrollment data from Fall 2003 through Summer 2013 at the University of Alabama in Huntsville (UAH) has been collected to analyze patterns in the core math, science, and engineering classes. Other variables including gender, race/ethnicity, age, prior GPA, transfer student status, and number of part time semesters have also been collected. This time period was chosen to extend the sample across two academic policies. From 1999-2009 almost all 100 and 200 level classes were graded on an A, B, C, D, and No Credit (NC) basis with NC grades being excluded from GPA calculations. This had the unfortunate effect of enabling students that were not making good academic progress to remain enrolled without triggering any academic interventions. The policy was abolished in 2009, but students are still allowed unlimited course withdrawals that also do not affect GPA calculations. An initiative within the College of Engineering focuses on monitoring and improving students’ academic progress to ensure that all undergraduates are successfully completing at least 66% of all credit hours attempted. Concerns have been raised about the unlimited withdrawal policy; particularly in light of rising tuition, limits on financial aid, and the growing national problem of student loan debt. Specifically, there is concern that utilizing the option of unlimited withdrawals may lead students to take a longer time to graduate. The research hypothesis is that a greater number of course withdrawals is associated with a longer time to graduation. While this hypothesis is intuitively obvious, it is important to analyze the data to formally prove/disprove it and to determine if there is a critical number of withdrawals students should not exceed.