Undergraduate degree
An undergraduate degree (also called first degree, bachelor's degree or simply degree) is a colloquial term for an academic degree taken by a person who has completed undergraduate courses. It is also an oxymoron, since one cannot hold a degree as an undergraduate. In the United States, it is usually offered at an institution of higher education, such as a college or university. The most common type of these undergraduate degrees are associate's degree and bachelor's degree. Bachelor's degree typically takes at least three or four years to complete. These degrees can be categorised as basic degrees.
Undermatching
Undermatching is considered as a serious issue in higher education, and it is getting increased attention from education researchers and policymakers. Undermatching can affect long-term economic inequality and social mobility, and it can negatively affect college graduation rates. According to one view, minority and less-affluent students have substantially lower graduation rates and take longer on average to get degrees when they do stay in school. Low college graduation rates are a problem in the United States; one estimate is that fewer than 60% of high school graduates manage to earn a bachelor's degree, which is one of the worst completion rates of developed nations. The problem of undermatched students has attracted the attention of the executive branch. Proposals to reduce undermatching include making it easier to transfer between colleges, making financial aid policies more transparent, and helping students identify colleges that will challenge them academically, possibly by sending high-achieving low-income seniors an information packet about college choices. According to a report by "NBC News" in 2014, some elite colleges such as Williams strive actively to bring bright low-income students by supporting them financially but these colleges can find themselves pressed to make up the shortfall by seeking out more full-paying students; as a result, students at such colleges tend to be mostly affluent with some low-income students but few from the middle class, which reporter Nona Willis-Aronowitz described as a "middle class squeeze".