Speedy 3-year degrees attract frugal students

Colleges and universities are ramping up a new option -- the three-year, 90-credit bachelor's degree -- to draw debt-wary students, writes Hechinger's Jon Marcus. Instead of "jamming 120 credits into fewer semesters," students can complete a degree by taking fewer electives and general education courses.

Johnson & Wales in Rhode Island offers a three-year degree in hospitality management.

These days, the average student spends more than four years on campus, wracking up more student loans and delaying the launch of a professional career. But non-elite colleges are having trouble persuading young people -- especially young males -- that the cost is worth it.

Under political pressure, accrediting agencies are approving reduced-credit "applied" or "career-focused" bachelor's degrees, he writes. Indiana, Utah, Massachusetts and other states have told public universities to develop reduced-credit bachelor's degrees.

"Ensign College in Utah, will convert all of its bachelor’s degrees into the new, reduced-credit, three-year kind," Marcus reports. "Nearly 60 other universities and colleges are planning, considering or have already launched them in some disciplines."

Some graduate and professional schools are accelerating their degrees. "More than half of current and aspiring medical students said in a survey they’d prefer a three-year over a four-year medical degree, mostly to save money," Marcus writes. Drexel University's College of Medicine just announced plans to offer a three-year medical degree.

“There are small groups of institutions saying that the old game doesn’t work and has to change,” said Bob Zemsky, an emeritus education professor at Penn and co-founder of College-in-3.

New Hampshire's Plymouth State offers a three-year degree in outdoor adventure leadership.

Johnson & Wales in Rhode Island offers three-year degrees in criminal justice, computer science, hospitality management and design. Plymouth State University in New Hampshire has added 96-credit, three-year degrees in robotics, outdoor adventure leadership and other fields. Mount Mary University in Wisconsin is adding 95-credit, three-year bachelor’s degrees in cybersecurity and digital marketing; Manchester University in Indiana, 90-credit, three-year bachelor’s degrees in accounting, pre-athletic training and pre-physical therapy.

Employers say they're open to job applicants with speedy degrees, reports Marcus. In a College-in-3 survey, "graduate school admissions officers said they "wouldn’t take domestic applicants with bachelor’s degrees of fewer than 120 credits, though most said they were reconsidering this as more reduced-credit undergraduate degrees are being introduced." 

College officials hope the three-year degree will attract more focused students, who will be less likely to drop out -- and perhaps more likely to stay a fourth year to earn a master's.

Opponents say "accelerated bachelor’s degrees will create a two-tiered system in which the most affluent students will have the luxury of spending four years in college," Marcus writes. They fear that "programs with fewer electives won’t do as good a job of teaching such important skills as critical thinking, ethical reasoning."

In many countries, students are admitted to a university based on test scores showing they're ready to do the work. They start their major immediately, and -- in most cases -- are expected to finish in three years.

"For most students, the opportunity cost of college — the wages they forgo while sitting in classrooms — is larger than the tuition they pay," writes Beth Akers of the American Enterprise Institute on RealClear Education. "Every year spent in school is a year not earning income or gaining work experience."

The quality of three-year degrees can be judged on students' outcomes, thanks to federal accountability rules, she writes. Do graduates qualify for graduate programs? How much do they earn five years later?