I’ve seen this happen before. A neighbor of mine had her program cancelled. It was an Illinois State University and they had a program down at Southern Illinois to cover them but that was too far. She was lucky she worked out a deal with Valparaiso University in nearby Indiana to finish it.
Further investigation:
Based on the fact that past experience shows the people working at her college are idiots, I looked up the school website. It seems that previously the school of professional studies had 3 bachelor’s degree’s: applied management, emergency management and public administration. Mrs. Cad was told the EM degree was gone and she would have to transfer tp applied management HOWEVER what the couselor didn’t know was last week they decided to combine the last two degrees into a BS of Public Safety & Emergency Management. So allowence would have to be made from 13 three-unit classes to 9 four-unit classes but all but two match up perfectly in terms of class description leaving 4 classes that she hasn’t taken and two she has taken that has no equivalent in the new system. Taking those 4 classes, she would be 2 units over in required units.
Tomorrow she emails the counselor to ask why they didn’t mention this other program. Expect to hear about the heaping scoops of stupidity that will be served with a side order of idiocy.
To get a waiver, the school’s branch you are attending must close. If they only stop offering a program, that isn’t likely to count, generally.
There are some timing concerns as well.
This is mainly applicable to trade schools and such, which are much more likely to close than a 4 year institution.
I think if you do a teach-out at another school, that also voids any waiver.
PS, cite is 20 usc 1087 c 1
It happens at state universities as well. When I was attending, the university merged some classes for my major together the quarter before I was admitted. The quarter after I left, they separated them and only allowed the previous classes satisfy one requirement, not the two requirements they did when merged. Many of the students had to stay an extra quarter to take 1-2 extra classes.
I think so too. If I can find some time today, I’ll look into the principles a little further. Maybe there is something there.
When I got my BS, the University added a language requirement shortly before I was to graduate. I had to shoehorn in a Spanish class. One of my classmates helped me in my struggles to pass Spanish, while I helped him with his English. He was from Argentina, taking Spanish (his native tongue) to fulfill the language requirement of his major.
It may have been me, has happened twice actually. Once, my degree program folded and we were migrated to a different major. The next time, my whole institution went defunct, with only 1 quarter’s warning, and we were left to find other universities to transfer to.
Sucks definitely.
My university did that, only in reverse. Instead of requiring four semesters of a foreign language for BA candidates, they only required three, but made it effective for those graduating in the spring of 2006 or later. Those of us who graduated in winter of 2005 (which included me) had to take that fourth semester. It pissed off the spring '06 grads who took an unnecessary semester and the winter '05 grads who had to find a way to squeeze in an extra course if they hadn’t already taken it. And the modern languages department eliminated the conversation and reading courses that had been intended to satisfy the requirement and replaced them with courses intended for majors and minors. Good times.
I had a friend whose adviser screwed up. The adviser led my friend to believe that he could receive a dual major in Art and Biology. My friend was/is an artist with an interest in science. A casual interest. He took everything (including organic chem, physics, biochem, etc) that I took as a Biochem major.
Nearing graduation, his adviser admitted she was mistaken. His major ended up as Art, with a minor in Biology. He could have wound up with the same degree(s) without taking organic chem, physics, biochemistry. He was unhappy.
This is all so weird. At my school orientation, they made a big deal about keeping the catalog they gave you at the start. They said that they were required to honor the degree requirements in the catalog that you got as long as you could prove that that was the one you had. After all these stories, I am starting to wonder if that was true…
Fortunately it was never and issue for me.
Every place I attended and taught at had a rule that a student could opt to graduate under the rules from any point after matriculation. I did this myself as an undergraduate. Couldn’t get approval for a course to count as a certain elective, changed to a newer curriculum. But that made something else I took invalid and ended up appealing to get it to count.
Which is always a key thing to remember about college rules. Everything can be appealed.
(It also helps to be on a first name basis with Deans. FYI)
IANAL, and this is probably why I’m not one, but I think that should be a civil tort. Taking those classes cost a lot of money and untold amounts of time in class and studying. He relied on the word of an employee of the school. I don’t see how the legal system should operate in a way that he is just out of luck in that situation.
Same way with the OP. If I start a 4 year degree program at a school, it is an implicit promise that they will offer the classes so that I can complete the degree. One or two years of schooling without a degree does pretty much nothing for me, and I wouldn’t start under that premise. To me that would be like an auto mechanic delivering a truckful of pieces of your car back to your house and telling you that he could only get half-way done. Instead of $800, you only owe him $400 and here are the small pieces of your car back. Have a nice day!
After I graduated, I learned that I had minored in German. It was kind of a nice surprise.
I didn’t have my program canceled, but I did have a class I took, which was in the English/Journalism department at the time and taught by a prof in that department, transferred later to the art department, which left me short a couple of credits for a journalism minor. (A film class–hands-on documentary.)
I put it on my resume that I have a minor in journalism. I don’t think the school would dispute it.
I think, on my transcript, it doesn’t actually say what department it was. It has never mattered. I’m pretty sure someone would have told me by now if they thought I had fudged a credit. After the first job it hardly mattered anyway.
But it was still kinda weird. (The college also changed its name, which was even weirder.)
I can tell you it was true in at least one case. My college slightly changed the catalog after my freshman year, and in the process elimnated a little noticed provision. I found the provision before my junior year in the copy of the catalog I had kept. The provision allowed a history major to double major in certain other social sciences with slightly reduced required hours for each major. Turns out that provision allowed me to collect a double major in history and anthropology.
In my case (school defunct post previously), I also did a brief consult with a lawyer and he felt that there was merit to hold the institution accountable to that (e.g. tuition recovery) if the school had it documented in any of their literature. I didn’t pursue it any further though since I wasn’t out-of-pocket enough to make it worthwhile.
What about the flip side. Do you think a college should be able to tell a student who wants to drop out, “Hey wait, we have an agreement for four years and a degree here. You owe two more years tuition even if you don’t attend.”
Good point. But I do think that is different somehow. I guess that it is reasonable for a college to assume that a certain percentage of students will not finish, however a student would have more of a reasonable belief that the college would still be there to offer the degree.
Probably since there is no shortage of students, there wouldn’t be a need for the school to “enforce” its side in that deal.
I just became aware of this thread from a link in another thread. I’ll cut and paste my reply here, in case the OP is still interested.