I didn't have this experience, because I very regularly had college classes that didn't start until 5, 6 in the afternoon, (the latest ever being a 9PM-1030PM twice a week) but I would expect that if your college doesn't offer those type of classes, that they likely have some sort of college sport and that's a pretty big income source for them, because that's the main reason that most high schools still run Early in the morning to early in the afternoon, despite it's been proven that's during a period that is not good for actual information retention, with newer generations.
this post was submitted on 03 Aug 2025
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High schools run early because one of their primary functions is childcare while parents work and parents commonly leave for work between 7-8 so kids need to be on the bus before then. They then stagger primary, middle, and high school so they can use the same bus drivers for all of them and high schoolers leave first so that they can arrive home first without parents. This is being changed as high schoolers need more sleep but it’s not for sports.
In college you need professors to teach classes and most of them want to work a more traditional schedule so want to be there from 7-3
agree with this as well. Being said, it definitely has to do with sports being involved as well.
sports was the main excuse our district used back when I was in HS for not starting later.
10am sounds like a dream. My school was open at 7am and went to 7pm.
Sometimes I would only have 3 classes in a day. One at 7am to 9am, then 12pm to 1pm and a class right at 5pm.
There was just enough gap that it didn't make sense to commute home. That's when I discovered an Ethernet port with unlimited bandwidth.
It just depends on what classes you need and when you get access to registration. I got lucky some semesters and managed to craft a schedule where nothing started before noon and some semesters where I was dying because I had a class at like 8am.
My older son managed to set his schedule last semester so the earliest class started at 11am
He’s a bit insane though - the previous semester I think he had only one afternoon class, so was done at lunch
Idk about the US but there are definitely both online and evening lectures schedules available at university. At my CompSci BSc it was more common to just not go and watch the lectures later.
Bear in mind our higher ed doesn't have any "general" education classes, only ones related to the degree, and we don't really have the same system of a wider selection of courses and it's the name of the institution that matters, like it seems to be the case in the US, in the UK, if you have a degree, you have the degree, there's no explicit difference between one at QMUL and UoW.
MA/PhD full time is all afternoon/evening classes, usually one day a week per class. I don’t think we ever started before 1pm, though it was typically closer to a 3-6pm/6-9pm schedule. The idea was we’d do our assistantships and teach the undergrad courses in the mornings (8-10ams) and have the world’s most inconvenient office hours in the space after that (between 11-2ish).
You never heard of night school before?
Tell me you didn't read the post without telling me you didn't read the post :)
When you reach middle age, you lose the ability to regularly sleep beyond 8am. Schedules are not written by young people.
Nevertheless, one of my younger relatives goes to a 16-18 year old college that starts at 10:30.
I'm middle-aged and still a night owl just like when I was younger. I think this depends on the person.
You're right of course, but rather than admit that, I want to claim that eventually your prostate, if you have one, will say no to sleeping through the morning.
More seriously, I think late teenagers have a well-documented hormonal predisposition to staying up late and getting up late. It's hard for them them to have to live to the typical middle aged schedule.
The answer, at least in my experience, is that schools offer classes throughout the day and it is up to the student to select classes that fit onto their schedule. Unless a class is only offered in the morning, it is entirely possible to attend classes that do not start before noon and still get a degree.
Same. Hell most people I knew aimed for the later classes. Plus there were a swath of classes aimed specifically at those working jobs - e.g. classes starting after 5.
This was my experience as well.
I did, however, have the unfortunate experience of studying a degree that required four sequential semesters of courses that started at 8AM. Granted, I could have solved that problem by changing majors, but here I am. Once those classes were over, all of my classes were between 11AM and 3PM.
So, how come all full-time education seems to start around 9am-10am?
Are you sure they don’t.
When I went to undergrad plenty of classes started at 11, 1, 4 and 7pm.
My kid went to undergrad about 15 years ago and the same was offered and he had a number of online options that he could do pretty much anytime.
Your schedule start times depends on the courses you choose. For core classes, there are usually multiple offerings of the same course by different professors at different times of the day. So if you want to start at noon as a freshman, you probably could if you design your schedule for the semester that way.
For upper level major-specific courses, if it's a small to medium sized program these may be offered once per semester or even once per year, so you're much more at the mercy of the professor's schedule.
Or if it's a complete program for a profession like nursing or medicine, you wake up when the professors damn well say you do.
The teachers probably prefer to work normal work hours.
They dont- you can sign up for all evening classes if you want
IF the classes you need are offered when you prefer, sure.
My engineering classes had one time option a year (not just per semester but only offered once a year) and none of them were offered later than 2pm
My university had groups for the afternoon, so if someone is working on the morning can still go to class.
I joined the afternoon group and it was fantastic, the classes were less crowded, easier to find a parking spot and no traffic jam when returning home.
The downside was that activities (extracurricular courses, sports clubs, etc) were on the afternoon.
I work at a university. I only teach between 1400 and 1700. We're a very small university though, only one bachelor degree and a few standalone courses.
I go to university of houston. This coming semester I have classes starting at noon, 2pm, and 4pm