Giving Compass' Take:

• The Hechinger Reports discusses how switching majors in college can add to a student's costs — and why formulating a plan before arriving at school may help.

• Is this expectation unrealistic? Many young people may not know what field of study suits them until they're in a higher education environment. We may need to focus more on lowering college costs in general.

• Here's why work colleges may become an affordable, high-value model for the future.

When she arrived as a freshman at Chestnut Hill College, Erin Crowley wasn’t sure yet what she wanted to do there.

Eventually she declared a major in psychology and a minor in art. After a year of psych classes, however, she decided “it wasn’t for me.” Plus, she wanted to make sure she’d have a good job when she was finished, since she’ll have $50,000 worth of student loans to repay. So after almost two full years in school, she switched her major to accounting.

Crowley didn’t need an accounting degree to tell her she was far enough behind her fellow majors that she was unlikely to graduate on time.

“I was scared that I was going to have to do another year and maybe take out another loan,” she said. “It is definitely a financial burden.”

Only through an exhausting regimen of night school, on top of a heavy schedule of six daytime courses per semester, has the daughter of a single mother managed to avoid the extra time and tuition it would have taken to stay in school for more than four years.

Read the full article about switching majors and college costs by Jon Marcus at The Hechinger Report.