As a part of the Graduation Initiative 2025, the California State University system plans to raise the amount of students graduating within four years. One of the strategies to achieve this goal is to increase summer session enrollment. According to the CSU website, this would allow students to keep to their own personal timelines, ideally to graduate on a four-, five- or six-year track.
“Summer sessions should be a part of every student’s academic program plan,” said Dean of the College of Continuing and Professional Education Jeet Joshee. “Summer sessions offer the opportunity to stay on track or to catch up and graduate on time, sometimes the classes you need are full, or you have a job and you can’t fit more classes in, but summer sessions gives you the opportunity to stay on the path of graduation.”
According to the preliminary draft report of the initiative, this strategy includes, “advising students to take in-demand classes over the summer break, developing online courses to make added course-taking more convenient, and exploring and implementing a system based financial assistance program to facilitate time to degree for freshman who are projected to graduate in 4.5 years or transfer students who are projected to graduate in 2.5 years to help with summer or intersessions costs.”
Summer course fees, unlike regular fall or spring tuition, are based off units instead of full-time or part-time status. Most students take one or two classes over the summer, which could be more expensive than a regular semester’s price. According to the CSU official website, if a student is taking less than six units the price is $366 per unit, but if they are taking more, it is $286 per unit.
This plan also talks about properly training advisors to pinpoint candidates who are on track to graduation and emphasize the importance of intersession courses to help facilitate those graduation goals.
“By completing six units over the summer, I will be completing my graduation requirements for graduation by next semester,” said Communication Studies major, Leslie Campos. “This means that I don’t have to worry about cramming two more classes into one semester, and instead enjoy my senior year.”