Facilitating Timely Completion of a College Degree With Optimization Technology

Students who pursue a bachelor’s degree in four-year colleges and universities often take longer than four years to complete their degrees. the reasons for prolonging the time-to-degree seem to fall into three broad categories: part-time enrollment, deficiencies in academic readiness, and inadequate course planning. this article focuses on the latter cause which is due, in part, to the complexity of graduation requirements and institutional regulations that makes effective course planning a difficult task. the article presents an integer linear programming model for finding academic plans that would satisfy a given set of graduation requirements and other constraints in the shortest possible time. the article shows how such a model can enhance and improve existing academic advising tools that are aimed at helping students in decision making and planning for more timely completion of their degree programs.