In an era of high youth high unemployment and crippling anxiety about the future, the cocoon of tertiary education feels relatively warm compared to the cold, bleak life of a graduate seeking full-time work. This is perhaps why, according to new data released on Wednesday, Australian students are taking a really long time to finish their degrees. In fact, a third of them aren't completing their undergraduate studies within six years. Technically, you could complete the requirements for most bachelor's degrees in half that time.According to the cohort study of completion rates for domestic bachelor students, only 45 percent of domestic bachelor students are finishing up their degrees within four years. The majority are taking longer than that. But there are some interesting details behind those broad figures.Those who study externally (e.g. via online courses), people admitted to university through an avenue other than high school, and older students are all likely to have lower completion rates. As are students from lower socio-economic, regional, or Indigenous backgrounds. There's also a lot of variation in completion rates between institutions. Students at the University of Melbourne had the highest course completion rate, at 88 percent. Meanwhile only 42 percent of students at Charles Darwin University were donning the cap and gown within six years.The simplistic reading of all of this paints Australian uni students as lazy drop outs—students taking six years to complete their BA and costing the government too much money. Many news reports were quick to emphasise that the national HELP loan debt stands at $52.5 billion.It's worth noting though that there's a crucial difference between taking a while to find your passion and dropping out of uni altogether. Australian uni students may be taking a while to finish their degrees—frequently switching courses and taking time off—but they are still graduating at a high rate of around 82 percent.This is well ahead of the OECD average of 70 percent. We actually rank third in the OECD for university completion, behind Japan and Turkey. So, Australia's slacker students actually still stack up well against the rest of the world. Our OECD results also compare favourably to nations with similar tertiary education systems. New Zealand students have a 66 percent completion rate, and the United States is around 64 percent.Despite all this, Australia's completion rates still have the Federal Government pretty worried. With main round university offers being distributed this week, Education Minister Simon Birmingham is encouraging prospective uni students to "make the right choice, first time" to avoid bouncing between different courses and delaying their graduation date."We've heard too many stories about students who have changed courses, dropped out because they made the wrong choices about what to study, students who didn't realise there were other entry pathways or who started a course with next to no idea of what they were signing themselves up for," he said in a statement released alongside the new statistics.Follow Kat on Twitter
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