Putting college in the fast track

“Online shopping. Smartphones with 5G. Meal delivery. Instantaneous access to information. So much of the world has speeded up. But college seems to take forever. Now change may be coming to long-standing practices that slow students down. Some colleges and the accreditors and states that oversee them are adding and approving three-year bachelor’s degrees that require fewer credits than the traditional four-year kind. Institutions facing enrollment declines hope the new three-year degrees will attract students unwilling to spend the usual amount of time and money that it takes to graduate. States need those graduates to fill jobs. Nearly 60 universities and colleges are planning, considering or have already launched reduced-credit, three-year bachelor’s degrees in some disciplines. They’re calling them “applied” or “career-focused” bachelor’s degrees. Related: Faster, thinner: Colleges are swiftly trimming a B.A. degree to three years At least one school, Ensign College in Utah, has announced that it will change all of its bachelor’s degrees into three-year programs requiring 90 instead of the usual 120 credits. States including North Dakota and Massachusetts have approved this new approach, and Indiana and some others have required or are considering requiring their public universities to add them. Students are increasingly impatient with the time they have to spend to get a bachelor’s degree — and the resulting cost. More than half of college students need more than four years to finish one, according to the U.S. Department of Education. Some are derailed by personal complications. But many colleges also slow them down by failing to provide enough of the courses students are required to complete, declining to accept their transfer credits , refusing to recognize work experience and holding back academic transcripts over even small unpaid bills. Related: Students can’t get into basic college courses, dragging out their time in school That means not only taking longer and paying more for a degree, but waiting longer to start earning a full-time income. Growing numbers of students have taken matters into their own hands. They’re collecting credits in dual enrollment and Advanced Placement classes during high school and loading up their schedules in college with more courses. More than 7 million of them have been taking classes in the summers . While earning bachelor’s degrees with fewer credits may appeal to some students, the idea is so new that there’s a key unanswered question: whether employers, graduate schools and licensing agencies will accept them. Related: Momentum builds behind a way to lower the cost of college: A degree in three years In a survey, one institution that is offering reduced-credit, three-year degrees — Johnson & Wales University — found support among employers. But graduate school admissions officers in a separate survey by a consortium of colleges said almost unanimously that they wouldn’t accept applicants with bachelor’s degrees of fewer than 120 credits. There was an important footnote, though: The admissions officers at those graduate schools said they would revisit that policy as more reduced-credit undergraduate degrees are being introduced. Contact writer Jon Marcus at 212-678-7556, jmarcus@hechingerreport.org or jpm.82 on Signal. This story about three-year bachelor’s degrees was produced by The Hechinger Report , a nonprofit, independent news organization focused on inequality and innovation in education. Sign up for our higher education newsletter . The post Putting college in the fast track appeared first on The Hechinger Report .

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