Torri Hopkins changed her major three times; in the end it took her five years to graduate.

According to A&T’s Institutional Research, the 2005 graduating class had one-out-of-five students graduate on time. The same class had a 76 percent freshman retention rate.

“The transition from high school to college was different,” said Hopkins, a member of the 1998 freshman class and psychology major. “I realized I wasn’t going to pass a class so I would drop it, especially math courses,” she said.

Hopkins said she would have researched her major more and stayed with her original concentration of child development. She later changed her major to sociology and finished with a dgree in psychology.

“It’s a common occurrence these days-very few folk are graduating within the four years. I run into folk who want to change their major as a junior. In that case you need to shop for a major,” said Dr. Robert Davis, the chairperson of sociology and social work.

The political science and criminal justice departments had a 34 percent on-time graduation rate for 2001. In 2004, 70 percent of 80 students in the freshman class were retained.

“I’m a little surprised. I use to work at another university, where retention rates were low. I wonder if it’s an institutional problem or is it the nature of programs,” said Derick Smith, an adjunct instructor in the political science department.

Smith is a former instructor at Fayetteville State University, where in 1997 they had the lowest on-time graduation rate of 18 percent among the 16 universities that make up the UNC system.

“If it was just institutional, everyone would graduate in five years,” Smith said. “It’s because people are leaving college.”

The department of agriculture had the highest on-time graduate percentage with 57 percent. Though there were only seven students in the freshman class.

Davis believes students should not have jobs outside of college and implementing this rule would drastically increase the graduation rates.

“If I had it my way no students should work,” Davis said.

The 1997 analysis of the UNC system showed that 21.5 percent of students graduated on-time. UNC-Chapel Hill had the highest on-time graduation rate of 69 percent. A&T was eighth among the 16 schools in on-time graduation.

Smith said there should be more stringent admission requirements, and faculty advisers should stress on-time graduation problems.

• Darrick Ignasiak