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Comment by navait | Hacker News Reader

The assumption that college is a four year commitment is absurd. AP classes mean you can get credit in high school, or the CLEP test allows adults to quickly get credit for classes. Community Colleges allow you to transfer credits. You can take extra classes, often at no extra cost.

It's only 4 years if you go in taking the absolute minimum amount of full-time credits to get the degree.

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Very few people, % wise, finish in under 4 years. The average is much closer to 6 years (http://www.politifact.com/wisconsin/statements/2013/aug/11/r...). You may be in a bubble of extreme high achievers that makes it hard to see the reality of most people. And that's data from all tiers combined, not just low tier schools (does that mean non-ivy?).

But the article is about people who are high achievers.

There are two types of those: learners and thinkers. The latter have difficulty doing busy work at any speed.

The reality is that most people take more than 4 years to graduate, especially at lower tier colleges.

Yeah, but the lower tier colleges are unlikely to attract the sort of student this article talks about. the people who have trouble completing their degree in time generally either fail classes or were underprepared for college. They are not the subject of this article.

College is a poor proposition for students at the lower tier colleges as well, but for different reasons.

I'm five years into college (working at a startup for now to motivate myself to finish). I have no difficulty whatsoever with the material, it's just an absolute waste of time to show up to class every day for years just to get a competency certificate for shit you can learn in a textbook. I'm gonna need that full six years just to get my self through all the bureaucratic bullshit.

It's also bad to assume you will actually completely your degree. Lots of people won't hack it, and they'll end up with more debt and a few skipped years of being in the workforce.

Very true. I took all the AP classes I could in high school (incuding some independent study) and was able to get a year knocked off of college easily. I probably could have gone to school in less, but a) my college capped my AP credits to 30 and b) I only took 15-16 credit hours most semesters.

I have to disagree as someone who took all AP classes in high school but couldn't afford to take the tests at the end. I guess if your parents aren't poor or you're otherwise able to get them financed sure, but not everyone has that luxury.

College Board offers programs to subsidize the cost of the test. In any case, the AP test generally mirrors the CLEP as well, so you can take that.

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