The four-year bachelor’s degree is now a requirement for everything from working in bridal shop management to being a certified public accountant. The majority of high school is spent preparing to earn a college degree, and now it seems that even the standard four years are not enough.

The Chronicle of Higher Education reported that while 55.0 percent of the incoming class of 2000 took four to six years to complete their degrees, only 6.6 percent of the 2006 incoming class expects to need more than four years. Something isn’t adding up.

Considering the demands of pre-professional majors, double majors, minors, specialized majors and internships, it should come as no surprise that the average degree takes more than the standard four years.

In spite of all this, the Missouri Southern course catalog still places even the most demanding degrees on a four-year track.

Don’t get us wrong, most degrees can be accomplished in four years, even if one must take 20-hour semesters to achieve make that timetable.

The flaw here is that we, as students, come in expecting a blanket four years. This is no longer the case. As the working world becomes more demanding we must be prepared to do what is necessary to keep up and have realistic expectations on how we are to do so.