The Tennessean reported that some American colleges and universities are considering the possibility of offering students the option of earning their degree in three years, instead of the usual four.
Advocates of the plan say that it will save families both time and money.
Hartwick College, a small liberal arts college in Oneonta, New York, will begin to offer the option, in which students enroll in an extra January term for 4 credits. This will save students a full year of the school’s $32,550 tuition.
Lipscomb University, a liberal arts institution in Nashville, Tennessee, announced in April that it will be designing a three-year bachelor’s degree program, “as part of an initiative at giving greater access to community college students and veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars,” according to the Tennessean. The 3-year program would allow students to save $10,000 in tuition, room and board.
The Washington Post reports that a three-year program “would work well for ambitious students who know what they want to study” and that the 3-year program would ultimately “provide the course requirements for a major and some general courses that have long been the hallmark of American education.”
A three-year degree model is used at many schools in Europe. However, many students have an extra year of vocational schooling before going to a university, and often do not take general-education courses.
Some American schools might force students to enroll in summer courses, while others will cut the number of required credit hours, in order to shave a year off of a student’s education.
The four-year model has been used in the United States since before the American Revolution.
According to the Post, the degrees “were designed in large part to provide a broad-based education that teaches young people to analyze and think critically” and that such a system was “considered vital preparation to participate in the civic life of American democracy.”
Randy Lowry, the president of Lipscomb University, told The Tennessean that permitting students to pursue a three-year model is important for increasing educational access.
The president of Hartwick College, Margaret Drugovich, agrees, saying to the New York Times that the school anticipated “a great deal of interest in an option that lets students get a top-quality education and save a whole year of tuition.”
Critics of the move claim that shortening an undergraduate’s experience by a full year would compromise their education, encouraging specialized job training over broad-based general knowledge. They point to Upper Iowa University’s failed attempt to institute such a program in 2004.
Statistics from the Department of Education show that, from 2001, 4.2% of undergraduates finished their degrees in three years, 57.3% graduated in four years, and 38.5% of students took more than four years to earn their bachelor’s degree.
Bates College in Maine and Ball State University in Indiana currently offer three-year degree programs, and Rhode Island’s House of Representatives recently passed a bill that requires all state institutions to create a three-year bachelor’s degree curriculum.
Senator Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn), a former education secretary and past president of the University of Tennessee, recently endorsed three-year education programs in front of the American Council on Education.
The Washington Post quotes him as saying that “it will not be easy to produce a low-cost high-quality three-year curriculum for a college degree, but now is the time to try. Today’s economic crisis and tight budgets are the best time to innovate and change.”
Our Take
A survey conducted by Junior Achievement, a nonprofit education organization, and the Allstate Foundation, a self-described “independent charitable organization,” found that 55% of students are changing their college plans because of the economy.
Despite critic’s claims that a three-year program would undermine the broad-based general education that is a hallmark of American schooling, it is important to offer students the option of fast-track specialization. This allows them to receive a degree and enter the job market faster, and with less debt, which helps ensure economic competitiveness and growth.
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