Massachusetts Colleges to Try Three-Year Degree Programs as Schools Struggle With Enrollment
“There’s a whole generation that has listened to their parents complain about their student debt, and they’re about to go off to college, and they’re not really interested in taking on a lifetime of student debt”
The problem is not the duration of a college degree, it’s the quality and the return on investment.
The College Fix reports:
Massachusetts colleges gain approval for three-year degrees as schools battle enrollment decline
Suffolk University and Merrimack College in Massachusetts became the latest universities to gain approval for three-year bachelor’s degree programs after the Board of Higher Education gave the green light Friday.
The colleges join more than 60 other institutions that have approved three-year degree pathways in recent years, according to The College Investor.
California State University, the largest public school system in the U.S., likewise voted in May to approve three-year degree programs, including a Bachelor of Professional Studies, Bachelor of Applied Studies, and Bachelor of Education. Its 22 campuses will decide whether to implement the programs.
The University of North Carolina also recently approved a pilot program for expedited degrees designed by its campuses. Seven of the university’s 16 institutions drafted proposals, which could be launched as early as fall 2027, according to the James G. Martin Center for Academic Renewal.
Additionally, Virginia and Ohio are partnering on an initiative called “Scaling College in 3” to develop expedited bachelor’s degree blueprints that require only 90 credits, according to Higher Ed Dive.
President Joe Ross of Reach University, an institution that offers apprenticeship-based degrees, told The College Fix that “speedrun” programs raise fundamental questions about the purpose and value of higher education.
“They beg the question, what is higher education and what makes higher education higher? At some point, training in six months or twelve months is just job training, which is fine. Some people just need a job and they just need training for that job,” he said.
However, he believes that higher education is more than just job training.
“It is the combination of what you learn, but also how you learn it and the relationships that play a role in that experience,” he said.
Ross added that schools are hoping to attract students back to their institutions with their new 3-year degree programs as enrollment declines, noting that newer generations are unwilling to take on student debt.
“There’s a whole generation that has listened to their parents complain about their student debt, and they’re about to go off to college, and they’re not really interested in taking on a lifetime of student debt,” he said.
Donations tax deductible
to the full extent allowed by law.
Comments
Anybody with the work ethic to have gotten through college in the ’60 and ’70s could get entirely through some of these new styrofoam majors in ONE year.
I went to night school and got my Community College of the Air Force AA degree. I was not making what an entry level school teacher was making as an electronic mechanic, the best job I could find as a Crypto tech.
I finally got a Management of Information Systems BS business degree, I was working in the field for 9 years. I was a senior project manager and I had all the Certs, (multiple Cisco, Lotus Notes, touchscreen programing, a communications cert, Net+, and Project Management). I made slightly more than my school teacher wife with a Masters degree and 15+ years tenure.
Like others in the IT market after Y2K I got laid off and could not find an IT job. I had stayed in the Air Guard and had been cross trained to satellite maintenance. I found a Satcom job and within a year I was making twice what I had as an IT project manager. I made the jump to the install team and I was making almost 4 times what I made in IT.
The college degree did put me ahead when going after the next job. I was a Senior Field Engineer, a fancy title that put me in charge of a Install team and a troubleshooting team. I would flip flop between the teams but spent more time with the troubleshooters unless it was a 4 meter or more sized dish.
Universities are increasingly like that Jumbo sized bag of potato chips at the grocery store that only have 3 oz of chips in them.
Great analogy
Leave a Comment