CAL POLY - "Cal Poly: It will be the best six years of your life," goes the old joke during the Week of Welcome freshmen orientation. The WOW counselors, for the most part, weren't joking.

Just 16 percent of first-time freshmen at Cal Poly graduate within four years. The school's rate is the best in the 23-campus California State University system but is still below the national average.

Twenty-four percent of freshmen who attended public universities across the nation were able to earn bachelor's degrees in four years or fewer, according to a report by the National Center for Education Statistics.

Cal Poly is greatly trailing UC campuses it competes with for new students, including Berkeley, Santa Barbara and San Diego, where 44 percent to 48 percent of students graduate within four years.

The San Luis Obispo school's "less-than-aggressive response to retention and graduation rates" was a top concern during the university's last accreditation review three years ago.

Improving students' success (including graduation rates) was one of Cal Poly's three main goals that President Warren Baker announced last fall. While he has appointed a committee to study the issue, the school has not made any concrete policy changes to speed up the graduation process.

Reasons for delay

All but two of Cal Poly's 61 bachelor's degrees are labeled as four-year programs for full-time students. So why do five out of every six Poly students take longer than four years to graduate?

A number of factors come into play, Baker said:

• About one-third of Poly students major in engineering and architecture programs. While architecture and landscape architecture are five-year programs, many engineering degrees are "in reality five-year programs, but they are designated as four-year programs," Baker said.

• Cal Poly is the only university in the state that requires incoming students to declare a major. One-third of Poly students switch their major at some point, thus delaying graduation.

• A majority of Poly students are involved in campus clubs, student government or study-abroad programs and choose to lighten their academic loads.

"The institution is not the barrier to graduating in four years," Baker said. "It's a selection made by the students."

He noted that half of Cal Poly freshmen graduate within five years, and two-thirds earn a bachelor's degree within six years.

Brad Lear, an industrial technology senior, said class availability has been an obstacle that delays graduation for some students. He cited a recent industrial technology course where 55 people showed up on the first day of class, vying for 23 openings.

"The classes just get too crowded and aren't available, and sometimes certain classes are only offered once a year," Lear said. "So if it's a required class and you miss it, you have to wait it out."

College-based fees helping

In fact, Cal Poly has added additional courses this year, thanks in part to the more than $10 million of extra annual funding students voted to pay starting last fall. The extra fees, $125 to $200 more per quarter per student, have gone toward hiring additional instructors, buying equipment and other classroom-related purposes.

The school's Provost Office does not know how many extra undergraduate classes Cal Poly offered in the 2002-03 school year are specifically due to the new fees because the numbers are tracked by the six colleges, said Leah Kolt, university spokeswoman. A final report later this summer will reveal that statistic, she said.

This spring, the university added 118 additional lecture classes on top of the 1,750 offered during last year's spring quarter. While this move added close to 4,400 extra seats, all but a handful of the general education courses were packed to capacity, said Debbie Arseneau, the school's scheduling manager.

Students receive three "priority registrations" in their tenure at the school, which essentially allows them to cut in line to enroll in classes. While some students choose to hold on to these priorities until their senior year, others use them earlier and have difficulty capturing degree-required classes in their final quarters.

The average Cal Poly student takes about 14 units per quarter, which equates to about four classes. At that rate, it would take about 41/4 to five years to graduate from the traditional four-year programs without attending summer sessions.

Lear, the industrial technology student, plans to graduate in the fall with a bachelor's degree and a packaging minor, after attending Poly for four years and a quarter and typically enrolling in 19 units per quarter.

"If you want to graduate in four years, school's got to be just about the only thing you do," he said.

Completing a senior project

Professor Unny Menon, who just finished his term as chair of the school's Academic Senate, said it's difficult to compare Cal Poly to other universities because of its unique polytechnic mission. Scheduling classes can be tough for students when each lab course is just one unit, but lasts three hours per week, he said.

"We pride ourselves in 'learn by doing' and hands-on education," Menon said. "You can't do that without labs. (Poly students) haven't just sat in class and listened to theory, whereas at UC campuses students don't necessarily touch the equipment."

Also somewhat unique to Cal Poly is its senior project requirement, which can range from 40-page psychology studies to bridge construction plans. In what can be the students' "Achilles' heel" to commencement, Menon said, some finish all graduation requirements except their senior project and thus leave campus without a degree. This is the case for 10 percent of Poly students, according to a 2000 Western Association of Schools and Colleges accreditation report.

Cal Poly is below the national average when it comes to graduation rates, Baker said, partly for financial and cultural reasons.

California public universities are among the least expensive in the nation. Thus, students outside of California have more of a financial incentive to graduate quickly, he said.

"It's quite different (here) than the culture in the East and Midwest," Baker said, "where students come to a university and think they are obligated to graduate in four years and if they don't, something is wrong."

Looking for answers

The president said Cal Poly would like to keep elevating its graduation rates, which have improved steadily over the past seven years.

Last fall, Baker picked a blue-ribbon panel of administrators, faculty, staff and students to study the issue. The committee has considered the following:

• Limiting students to initially register for 14 units per quarter, instead of 16, thus discouraging a small number of students from hoarding classes;

• Providing more academic advising and monitoring to ensure students are on track with their classes;

• Reducing the number of units it takes to graduate; and

• Improving support for senior projects.

The most recent accreditation report noted that the school in general is often slow to take action on making improvements.

"There is a sense, even among members of the Cal Poly Steering Committee, that there may be more planning and discussion than actual accomplishment," according to the 2000 report.

Baker hopes to see a boost in four-year graduation rates, especially as an additional 70,000 students will enter the CSU system during this decade.

"You have to have a lot of things go right" to graduate in four years, he said, "but it can be done."