Randy Metcalf/Arizona Summer Wildcat Psychology freshman Ashley Moseby, left, and undeclared freshman Liana Nadborny wait for their orientation programs to begin Tuesday morning. Orientation leaders and academic advisers were calming students and parents fears about budget cuts and class availability at last weekās two day session.

Matt Campbell, a new freshman majoring in business, registered for classes last week along with hundreds of other incoming students

Struggling to find the classes he was advised to take, he said he is already worried about keeping his course load fairly even throughout his stay at UA.

"I donāt want to get to senior year and have to take 19 units," he said. "I want an average of 15 units and get out in four years."

Nearly a year after UA was first asked to tighten its budget belt, the first group of post-budget cut freshmen are primed to start school, and they will enter it with different promises than the group just a year before them.

"There will be a noise that you havenāt heard in more than 10 years from students who canāt get into the classes they need," President Peter Likins predicted in May.

With only weeks until the fall semester, the hopeful class of 2006 will be the ones to test that prediction, facing a new atmosphere ÷ one with cutbacks in classes, programs and rhetoric.

Finish in Four, no more

"Finish in Four" was designed by university officials seven years ago to encourage UA students to graduate from college in a timely manner.

And since then, freshmen have been given the opportunity on the first day of orientation to sign a contract promising the university that they would indeed try their hardest to graduate in four years.

This summer, the "Finish in Four" program was put on hold, marking a change in at least part of the summer orientation, and freshmen are already beginning to feel the pinch when registering for classes.

Stan Campbell, Mattās father, said advisers were preparing the students for a narrow selection of classes.

"They said itās not a good selection, but if youāre not picky, you should be okay," he said.

Nancy Hall, a parent of an incoming sociology freshman from Virginia, said she wished her son had gotten an earlier orientation date for better class selection.

"If we had known in advance that it would be this hard, we would have been here earlier," she said.

She said UA officials and orientation leaders have been calming parentsā and studentsā fears about getting the classes they need, but the cold, hard facts are difficult to ignore.

"Itās reassuring, but itās hard to believe them when the computer says zero," Hall said.

Randy Richardson, vice president for undergraduate education, said "Finish in Four" has been put on hold but not eliminated entirely.

The "Finish in Four" program was never intended to be a contract written in stone. Instead, it was an agreement between student and administrator that if a student kept to one major, took a full load and met with an adviser regularly, that they could graduate in four years.

Numbers released in early 2002 showed that while students who signed onto the program did indeed graduate at a higher rate than those who did not sign on, the actual percentage of UA students who graduated in four years remained roughly the same as before the program was instituted, hovering at around 40 percent.

"Advising has been very tough for us," said R. Scott Johnson, interim assistant director of the Office of Academic Services. "Itās been difficult for us this summer because the university got its budget so late. We didnāt know how much of which classes would be available."

Despite the uncertainty about the future of class availability at UA, Johnson said he has not changed how he advises his students. He said that if a student can take more than 12 units each semester, he or she should have no problem graduating in four years.

"It is our hope and aspiration that all students who want to finish in four can," Richardson said.

He noted that there were plenty of options and good class availability for UA students registering in the spring, but incoming freshmen will have even fewer classes than normal to choose from when they register.

But the issue at hand for incoming freshman and their parents as they begin their careers at UA is not whether or not they can handle 12 or more units ÷ itās whether or not they can find 12 or more units to take.

Lynne Tronsdal, associate dean of the University College, said the number of general education courses being offered in the fall should be sufficient for students to graduate in four years.

She said UA added 1,000 seats in a number of general education courses and made them available to the incoming freshmen.

"Weāre feeling good about the student," Tronsdal said.

The road ahead

Marc Life, an incoming pre-business freshman, said his academic advisers told him his math class would have to wait until the spring semester, because budget cuts eliminated the fall section.

Richardson said many colleges were forced to eliminate either fall or spring sections of some courses to lessen their monetary strains.

However, he said he is hopeful that there will be as many seats as possible for UA students in the fall.

"Things have been tough, but weāll wind up with the same number of seats," he said.

"Every year, some students wonāt get what they want when they want it," Richardson said.

Richardson said the class availability for lower division classes is still in good shape.

"We worked hard over the summer to increase the number of seats," he said.

Richardson said UA is still dedicated to helping students already on the "Finish in Four" program to meet their goals, and university officials are working to find seats in lower division courses for incoming freshmen.

Richardson said the students who are feeling the impact from lost classes are transfer students.

Since transfer students come to UA in need of upper division classes rather than general education courses, they are faced with essential classes whose seats were all claimed by current UA students registering in April.

Danielle Kelly, a freshman majoring in English, said she was relying on classes opening up later in the summer for freshmen with late orientation dates.

"Some teachers said they would open up seats specifically for us," she said.

Johnson, the OAS assistant director also said he is concerned that students may fall behind if they canāt get seats in required classes, but also said they can make up the missed class by enrolling in either summer or winter session.

"The purpose behind ĪFinish in Fourā is still there," he said. "It can still be done."

Johnson said the students who are having the most trouble keeping up with the "Finish in Four" program are last yearās freshmen. He said some of them missed priority registration, and all the classes were full when the straggling students tried to enroll for the fall semester.

Johnson said he encourages these students to check every day to see if a spot has opened up in the classes they need.

He also said that students wanting to add a class on the first day of the semester should call or e-mail their professors a few days ahead. He said this would give students an advantage from others who also want to add the class on the first day.

Despite UA officialsā best attempts to quiet her concerns, Hall is still anxious about her sonās chances to get the classes he needs.

"You go to bed worrying about it every night," she said.