[gchallen]

Absolutely. The article makes it sound like problems with poor advising are confined to community colleges. That's ludicrous.

And it's not just state schools. When my wife went back to RIT (Rochester Institute of Technology, an expensive private school) to study photography, nobody there could even answer questions like: What courses do I need to graduate? Knowing that might be useful!

A lot of the student management systems used at many schools are extremely antiquated. Degree requirements are expressed in ways that make it difficult or impossible to create tools to help students plan their schedules and stay on track to receive their degree on time. Registration can make it hard for students to enroll in courses they need to complete their program. Many advisers are doing their best, and come up with hacks and workaround to try and help individual students, but access to advising can be limited and advisers are also affected by the poor data and tooling.

And of course, it's worth pointing out that universities are positioned to benefit from student mistakes. Didn't realize that you needed that course to graduate? See you next semester! Make sure to bring your (or your family's) checkbook. I'm sorry you couldn't register for that popular course as an undergraduate! Have you considered our MS programs?

These problems are not limited to community colleges.