Stay on TRACK relaunches photo contest

August 25, 2014

University Relations

University of Alaska students who participate in the myTRACK photo contest will be entered in a drawing for two tickets on Alaska Airlines.

In the contest, students post a “selfie,” or self-portrait, to UA’s Facebook contest site indicating with their fingers how many years it will take to earn their degrees. Click here for more info. The third annual contest runs through Oct. 31.

The contest is part of UA’s annual Stay on TRACK campaign, now in its fourth year, which encourages students to take steps graduate quicker and with less debt.

UA’s efforts to encourage full-time students to take additional credits have made a difference. Students who attempted 15 or more credit hours had a higher credit-hour completion rate than those who attempted less than 15 credit hours. In the long term, students who attempt and earn at least 15 credit hours a semester perform significantly better than full-time students who take less than 15 credit hours a semester. First-year retention to the second year of college is 23 percentage points greater for students taking 15 credits per semester compared to students taking lighter course loads. And graduation rates among full-time students with heavier loads are impressive — 39 percentage points higher (over a 10-year period).