Check credits against graduation requirements.
Graduation is not one credit total but several buckets that must each be filled, and surplus in one does not offset a shortfall in another. Computing the gap per category and flooring each at zero prevents an excess of electives from masking an unmet major requirement — the single most common cause of a delayed graduation discovered too late to fix.
Category gaps
Gap per category = max(0, credits required - credits earned) for major, general education and electives
Total outstanding
Credits still needed = major gap + general education gap + elective gap
Sometimes surplus major credits count as electives, but rarely the reverse, and general education requirements are usually strict. The official degree audit is the authority.
Because the distribution is wrong. Ninety total credits with only thirty in the major leaves the major unmet regardless of the total, which is exactly what a per-category check catches.