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As many students have noticed, the price of going to college is increasing every year. As of right now, a Fairfield education costs a student almost $56,000 a year if the student decides to live on campus. As this price cannot be changed, parents and students want a guarantee that it will be possible to complete at least a Bachelor’s Degree within the four year time period. Even one more year can put some stressful strains in a family’s budget.

To combat these rising prices, each incoming member of the Class of 2015 at Randolph-Macon College was eligible to participate in a signing ceremony. The new student, a parent or guardian, and the college president signed an agreement that guaranteed the student a degree that would take no more than four years to complete as long as the student kept up with their academic work and met regularly with advisers.

The next question on many parents’ and students’ minds was what would happen if the college was unable to hold up its end of the bargain. What if the required classes were not available or advisers gave poor counsel? Would the family be forced to pay another year of tuition due to an event that was not their fault? Turns out that Randolph-Macon College promised to cover the cost of additional tuition until the student completed his degree.

This idea of a four year degree guarantee is beginning to be offered at many small private colleges. This guarantee is used as a marketing tool to ease parents’ fears that their children may be forced to stay in college for six years instead of four, leading to a major damper in the spending budget. The guarantee also helps students set their first college goal even before the start of classes: students should aim to earn a degree within the time span of four years.

Randolph-Macon College, Juniata College, Virginia Wesleyan College, California State Polytechnic University, and Western Michigan University are some schools that have offered the guarantee this year. Baldwin-Wallace College will be one of fifteen schools that will offer it beginning with the Class of 2016. Tony Pals, a spokesman for the National Association of Independent Colleges and Universities believes “the four year graduation guarantee is an approach we will see more private colleges take in coming years.” College parent, Debbie Wileer of Warrenton, Virginia, seems to agree with Pals when she says that it gives her piece of mind that the school is paying attention to this.

While this plan may be popular among some students and parents, it may still not go into practice for a while. According to an estimate by the federal Department of Education, approximately 80 percent of the undergraduate students in the United States earn their degrees at private colleges and universities within four years. Colleges that have been practicing this guarantee like the University of the Pacific in California, which has been practicing this guarantee since 1991, usually find ways to protect themselves from paying a student’s tuition. Many of these colleges would only pay the tuition if graduation was not obtained due to the college’s own mistakes, like not having a required class.

The college would not cover if a student changed their major as a junior or senior or was study abroad for a semester.The four year guarantee program is still in its experimental stages. Many colleges began offering the program in 2008 or later, meaning that these students have not had a chance to graduate.

As of right now, Fairfield University does not practice the four year guarantee program. This is mainly due to the fact that more than 80 percent of Fairfield University students graduate within the designated four years.

If the University decides to employ this policy in the future is another matter. What does the student body think? Should Fairfield University employ a policy that guarantees their promise to pay a student’s tuition if the student is forced to stay a fifth year to complete a degree?

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