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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]Graduation rate:

Northeastern has a 4 year program with 2 coops as well as 5 year 3 coop options. 
(5 year used to be the norm, but 4 year is more common now)
It's not any harder than any other school to graduate in 4 years.

USN&WR and many others use the graduation rate for it's ranking calculation.It's based on 6 years.  A lot of students change majors, study abroad, etc. so 6 year calculation is the norm.  https://www.usnews.com/education/best-colleges/articles/how-us-news-calculated-the-rankings

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Northeastern 6 year grad rate: 90%
https://usnews.com/best-colleges/northeastern-university-2199/overall-rankings

UMD 6 year grad rate: 87%
https://usnews.com/best-colleges/university-of-maryland-2103/overall-rankings

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I'm a NP and definately not a NEU booster---but yes, any school where most do Coops will have a really low 4 year graduation rate.  Simple fact that it is difficult to do 3 coops (even 2) and graduate in 4 years.  For engineering/STEM majors, even if you want to do 4 years and 1-2 coops, that means taking summer courses at least 2 summers.  And that means the courses you need must be available in the summer.  Don't know about you, but I don't recommend taking Orgo or high level engineering courses crammed into 7 weeks sessions.  It might be easier to do this as a business or humanities major, but for hard core STEM it can be incredibly challenging.  
I always look at the 5/6year graduate rates when comparing schools.  I also delve deeper and see "who it is that doesn't graduate in 4 years".  At many schools it's the engineering school---engineering is known to often take an extra semester for many kids---it typically requires more credits than other majors and those courses are intensive.  Also, many kids in engineering do coops from most schools and that typically means a summer and a semester for the coop--so it means you graduate a semester late.  Not really a concern given that you are earning $$$$ while on coop and for engineers that is typically substantial pay.

Also any school with significant first gen students or lower income students will likely have lower 4 year grad rates, as those students often take a bit longer.  They might need to be working while in college so don't take as full of a course load; they might have to take a break to earn enough money to pay for the next semester; they might need to take a break to help out family at home; they might not understand the college process as well as someone who has been taught about it since they were a baby and have parents who help make sure they are "on track" so if they miss a class in fall and it's a prerequisite for 2 spring courses, and those courses are only taught 1 semester, they have just added an extra year to their college.  So many valid reasons for why people may not graduate in 4 years.

What you want to figure out is if the reason for not graduating is because even the top students just CANNOT get into the courses they need (a known phenomena at several UCs/Cal Poly/many large state U in popular majors).  When that's the case, it's a issue (IMO)
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