OUR VIEW: Congrats, graduates — maybe

Next week marks the end – the end of the school year and, for some, the end of a school career.

On May 5, thousands of Utah State University students will graduate.

Maybe.

Unfortunately, USU students can apply for graduation, can watch their advisers and college deans sign their applications, can order a gap and gown and graduation announcements, can get a post-graduation job and can walk in the graduation procession, but as Registration likes to say, students can’t be sure they’ve graduated until they get their diplomas in the mail.

Like many universities, USU has, over the years, gotten itself more and more bogged down in bureaucracy to the point that almost anything that students have to do comes with a laundry list of ifs, buts and unlesses.

There is the possibility that, months after a student has entered a career and moved across the country to start a new life, he or she could find out that a missing signature or an advising error means he or she isn’t, after all, a college graduate.

Of course, some students who think they’ve graduate may find out they didn’t because they failed a required class. That’s understandable.

Other students might fill out their application forms incorrectly and be legitimately ineligible for graduation. But hopefully those mistakes can be caught long before finals week.

Graduation is an exciting and stressful time in a student’s life. The university hires people whose job it is to make sure things go smoothly and to answer students questions. Something needs to be done about the fact that many fall through the cracks, through no fault of their own.