It's official.

Penn State announced yesterday that it has finalized a new academic calendar for the next six years that includes the elimination of fall break and a later start for the fall semester. The calendar also allows flexibility for move-in weekends that would coincide with home football games.

Under the new calendar, which takes effect next fall, classes will begin no earlier than Aug. 30 to allow students to work at internships and summer jobs longer. Fall break will be replaced with a "study day" on the sixth Friday of the semester. Thanksgiving break will be extended to include the Wednesday before the holiday.

Move-in weekends that coincide with the first home football game will be moved to the Thursday before those weekends to prevent two of the semester's busiest times from conflicting.

"It's hard to tell what the impact is going to be until we try it," university spokesman Bill Mahon said.

He said the university will do its best to accommodate everyone by making move-in a broad range of days for parents who work during the week.

"There will never be a perfect day for everybody ... this is just too big of a place," Mahon said. "The needs are very different for everybody."

The new calendar will also move the fall semester Friday study day to a different week when it falls before weekends of home football games.

He said the calendar is a compromise that must balance the different needs voiced by the Undergraduate Student Government (USG) and University Faculty Senate.

USG President Rubina Javeri said student input should have had a larger impact in Penn State President Graham Spanier's decision.

"It's not really a compromise [for students]," Javeri said. "I don't think there was enough student opinion on the issue."

USG worked to implement fall break as a mid-semester study break in 1999 and last year made Spanier aware of its opposition to fall break's elimination.

"It's unfortunate that all our hard work is going to be gone now," Javeri said.

John Moore, University Faculty Senate chair, agreed with the administration that the new calendar is a good compromise for faculty.

"Given the various voices and pressures the president [Spanier] was under ... I think he did a good job," Moore said.

The Senate advised Spanier in the spring to remove fall break and make Thanksgiving break a full week -- neither of which Spanier completely granted.

Moore expects students will continue skipping classes before each of the two breaks in the fall, including the single study day in October.

"Even though it's called a study day, it will still be used as a break," he said.

But Moore also said some people will be pleased with the changes and some will not.

"No matter what we do it doesn't suit somebody," he said.

Mahon said the university is trying.

"We'll keep trying to make the calendar a little better each year," he said.