Some Students Out of School at 20, Others at 22

[jeffmikl]

I have noticed that some students get jobs when they are 20 years old and others do not until they are 22. I have not seen any older than 22 but I wonder if there is something that triggers them getting jobs. The game says people are students for a few years but 10 to 12 years is actually quite a lot, especially since I also notice that students often will not have children.

Jeff

[irrelevant]

I've had this happen to me in a couple of towns. What is causing this is that your students live far away from the schools they are attending. Long walks to school mean it takes longer for them to graduate. I've had students as old as 26.

The bad thing here is that once a student starts going to a school they will continue going to that school until graduation. If a student gets married, they may take a house far away from the school they are attending. This can really delay their education. It is one of the downsides of aggressively building houses, which eventually results in students getting married.

There is a workaround that requires some micromanagement and building some extra schools. You build enough "extra" schools to take all your students; now you should have twice as much classroom space as you need. If for example you have 110 students, you will need to build 6 "extra" schools. Assign teachers to these schools, then click off the work button for your "regular" schools. Let the game run until all your students are attending the "extra" schools (won't take long). Now re-open the "regular" schools. Make sure they all have teachers. Once you are sure they are ready to go, click off the work button of the "extra" schools. Now all your students will switch to the school that is nearest to where they live.

Of course, this will only be worth the effort if your "regular" schools are spread out so that all housing areas have a school nearby.

Be sure always to build a school near every housing area you create.

[jeffmikl]

That makes a lot of sense. What is the earliest age students graduate? I deliberately opened only one school because I had slow down issues with enough schools, but I did not consider the negatives. Now maybe I will close the one school I have open

Thanks

Jeff

[Nilla]

I have seen 15 years old graduate, but that´s extremely rare. Normally students who live directly by the school, graduate at 16.