Fast-track to a bachelor's: Why colleges are offering 3-year degrees

Ever since taking a culinary class her sophomore year, Jahsmine Son knew she wanted to work in the food industry. The Cambridge Rindge and Latin high school senior has won a statewide competition in restaurant management and culinary arts. Her dream is to manage her own restaurant — but she’d like to attend college first.

So when she heard about Johnson and Wales’ new three-year bachelor’s degree program in hospitality management, she jumped at the opportunity to apply.

“The industry doesn’t wait and I feel I shouldn’t have to either,” she said.

Son will join Johnson and Wales' inaugural class of three-year bachelor’s degree seekers this fall. The faster track shaves a year off the standard four-year undergraduate course of study in order to save students time and money.

The Rhode Island school offers the program for other career-focused majors such as computer science and graphic design, according to its website.

Johnson and Wales is one of several higher-ed institutions in New England — and a growing number nationwide — offering a compressed college experience amid concerns over rising tuition costs and student loan debt.

The school's revised curriculum reduces the total number of credits required from 120 to about 90. While some other countries offer three-year undergraduate degrees, in the United States, a four-year bachelor’s has long been the standard.

As the sticker price of college rises, the concept of condensing the college degree is gaining traction. New Hampshire's Plymouth State University will offer a three-year degree for a handful of pre-professional majors this fall. In North Andover, Merrimack College also hopes to pilot a program, pending approval from the Massachusetts Board of Higher Education, which is set to discuss the topic in an upcoming meeting.

Officials at Merrimack College did not respond to requests for comment.

These schools have already cleared one other important hurdle: the New England Commission of Higher Education, the accreditation agency for the region's colleges and universities, signed off on all three proposals last year.

"The number one conversation that we have ... is how are they going to afford to come to college?"

Johnson and Wales Chancellor Mim Runey

Johnson and Wales Chancellor Mim Runey said the university was keen to offer a three-year degree based on what students were saying about the costs of higher education.

“The number one conversation that we have, beyond the interest that students have in a particular degree program is, how are they going to afford to come to college?” Runey said.

Annual tuition at Johnson and Wales is roughly $40,000 — about the average price tag of a four-year degree at other private U.S. colleges.

Runey acknowledges the three-year degree is not for everyone, just those who may already be laser-focused on a particular career or pathway.

“The program is really designed for the student who absolutely knows what he or she wants to do,” she said.

Bob Zemsky, a retired professor of education at the University of Pennsylvania, has long advocated for trimming the undergraduate degree. He heads a movement called “College-in-3,” an initiative that connects university leaders with one another to discuss best practices for pursuing the three-year model.

“Higher education is in a funk these days. It's not doing well,” he said. “Here was an idea that said, we can change for the better ourselves.”

One problem he noticed was retention. Research from the Education Data Initiative shows that roughly a quarter of full-time undergraduate freshman drop out of college in their first year.

Zemsky said he hopes schools can think more about what's essential for students to learn and trim the rest.

"Let's not focus on what faculty want to teach, but let's focus on what students need to know," he said.

Roughly 50 schools across the country have expressed interest in the initiative, he said, and about eight have already enrolled students in a three-year program.

Still, there are trade-offs. In reducing the number of total credits, students take fewer general education or elective courses. They also have less time to explore classes outside their field of study or switch majors.

Some higher education experts also worry that a curriculum too focused on career readiness might box students in.

"We cannot predict what the workforce needs are going to be in, honestly, three, five, 10 years,” said Jorge Burmicky, a professor of higher education and policy at Howard University, adding that students need skills that are transferable to other fields.

While a three-year degree is appealing from a financial standpoint, Burmicky said, workforce readiness is not the only goal of the undergraduate experience.

“Are we also making sure … that these students are also having the same networking opportunities and social connections that are critical to upward mobility?” he said.

To address that need, the New England Commission on Higher Education released guidelines for colleges interested in offering a shortened bachelor's degree. They include developing a way to assess if a program is successful; including an “appropriate mix” of general education and elective courses; and clarifying for applicants and future employers that the degree requires fewer than 120 credits.

Schools should also offer a path to a four-year degree, according to the commission.

Other higher education experts wonder if the three-year degree may, in reality, take more time for students to complete than designed on paper.

The average undergraduate student takes roughly five years to finish their bachelor's degree, said Francesca Purcell, a professor at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. Three-year degree seekers might need an extra year, too.

Still, Purcell said a three-year bachelor’s option is a healthy development in the landscape of higher education.

“Higher ed has been experimenting with offering different types of levels of degrees for decades upon decades upon decades,” she said. "To me, this is sort of a natural outgrowth of what we've seen in the field happening for a long time now.”