ARNOLD, Md. -- Students at AACC forfeited $4,048,149 last school year by withdrawing from classes after the drop deadline according to AACC Planning, Research & Institutional Assessment.
Close to 15,000 students withdrew from their classes during the fiscal year of 2007 to 2008.
“I’ve dropped classes like they were hot,” said Amber Spence, a 19-year-old student at AACC
Students most often drop classes due to academic concerns according to the Education Resources Information Center, a government ran digital library of education literature, provided by the Department of Education. The most common academic reasons for dropping courses include “course content was too difficult,” “subject matter not what I expected,” and “boring presentation by the instructor.”
Course withdrawals were also motivated by personal reasons, such as ill health, financial problems, employment scheduling as well as transferring to another school.
The courses that are most often withdrawn from include classes that are within the chemistry, mathematics and biology disciplines.
With 47,072 credit hours being thrown away by students last year at $86 per credit hour (for in-county tuition) where does the money go?
“Majority of it goes into teaching,” said Vincent Maruggi, interim executive director of planning of the research and institutional assessment at AACC. “about 52 percent goes to instruction.”
When a student withdrawals from a class after the drop date,a “W” will appear on their transcript. A “W” has no affect on the student’s GPA, but will remain on the transcript even if a student has retaken a class and received a high grade.
The school policy allows students to have up to 10 withdrawals until their record is placed on hold.
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