Earlier this month, UNC-Asheville announced plans for increasing on-time graduation.
According to Inside Higher Ed, UNC-A is unveiling a program called “first to finish,” which covers tuition for four courses that help satisfy the liberal arts core requirements. In addition to covering tuition, the program will cover fees and housing for students.
The University is planning to offer free summer courses for students one or two classes short of senior status in order to encourage their completion of the 120 credits required for graduation.
The program will be offered to between 75 and 100 students.
UNC-A’s interim Chancellor Joseph Urgo said in an email the program targets low-income, rural and first-generation students. Urgo has emphasized that graduating in four years offers benefits to students’ success both inside and outside the classroom.
“A student who finishes in four years instead of five can find themselves tens of thousands of dollars ahead of their peers a decade later," he said.
Further considering the benefits of the summer programs, Urgo added that they save taxpayer dollars.
"It's compounded by fewer student loans that could have been accrued during another semester, and the opportunity cost for a year the student might not have been in the labor market,” he said.
The program comes as an effort to improve the University's current four-year graduation rate of just under 40 percent and six-year graduation rate of about 60 percent, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
