No Stupid Questions

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.

You never heard of night school before?

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).

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.

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.

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.

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.

The teachers probably prefer to work normal work hours.

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.

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.

They dont- you can sign up for all evening classes if you want

I suspect the main reason is the inertia of the 9-5 that most of the world revolves around. You'd struggle to recruit staff to teach, techs to maintain buildings and stock required if they had to work permanently on late shifts.

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 go to university of houston. This coming semester I have classes starting at noon, 2pm, and 4pm

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.