Dive Brief:
- Virginia is teaming up with Ohio to design a blueprint for three-year bachelor’s degrees that would require 90 credits for graduation. The partnership comes as more states and institutions mull shorter pathways to college.
- The State Council of Higher Education for Virginiaannounced Thursday that it plans to work together with several private and public colleges in the state, Ohio higher education representatives,and a handful of nonprofit groups on an initiative named “Scaling College in 3” led by the organization Jobs for the Future.
- Institutions involved aim to map out two three-year programs to propose by spring 2028, according to SCHEV.
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Dive Insight:
The ranks of colleges offering three-year bachelor’s degrees with fewer credits have been growing in recent years, though they’re still rare throughout U.S. higher education.
In announcing Virginia’s efforts, SCHEV Executive Director Scott Fleming said that no national blueprint exists for a shorter pathway. “With new approaches to postsecondary education, where appropriate, we hope to develop pathways that are rigorous, relevant and responsive to today’s students and the workforce,” he said Thursday in a statement.
To achieve that, Virginia is working with both Ohio officials and a handful of higher education groups, many of them familiar names in the field, including Arnold Ventures, Strada Education Foundation, the American Association of Colleges and Universitiesand Ithaka S+R.
Ten Ohio universities are participating in the initiative, including Ohio State University, Cleveland State University and Ohio University, according to a spokesperson for the Ohio Department of Higher Education.
Virginia requires at least 120 semester credit hours to complete a bachelor’s degree.Ohio law details a similar threshold typically required for bachelor’s degrees.
If they follow through, Virginia and Ohio would follow other states experimenting with the shorter degrees. Just the day after SCHEV’s announcement, Massachusetts’s state higher education board said that it had approved the first three-year programs in the state —at Merrimack College and Suffolk University.
Both private institutions are launching relatively limited offerings. Merrimack is piloting 96-credit applied bachelor’s degrees in business administration, communications, criminal justice and psychology. Suffolk, meanwhile, is testing a 94-credit applied bachelor’s program in healthcare administration and innovation.
“Three-year degrees will make it more affordable for students to graduate and get the skills they need to succeed in today’s workforce,” Massachusetts Gov. Maura Healey said Friday in a statement.
But the announcement also drew fire. On Monday, leaders of the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers spoke out against state approval of those degrees as well as three-year programs writ large.
Greenlighting the Suffolk and Merrimack programs “threatens academic integrity by substituting for a comprehensive education a stripped-down curriculum that prioritizes speed over essential intellectual development,” AAUP President Todd Wolfson and AFT President Randi Weingarten said in a joint statement.
Wolfson and Weingarten argued that a shorter bachelor’s degree pathway was the wrong tool to reduce college costs, instead advocating for expanding the Pell Grant and other federal and state programs.
“Compressing or reducing the curriculum threatens to narrow students’ education at precisely the moment when society needs graduates with stronger critical thinking, communication skills, scientific literacy, and civic understanding,” they added.
But there are plenty of advocates for shorter pathways across the political spectrum as well. In 2018, for example, the Progressive Policy Institute criticized the traditional undergraduate degree model as antiquated and argued three-year programs could make college more affordable and accessible.
More recently, the U.S. Department of Education trumpeted the growing interest in and accreditor approval of three-year bachelor’s as among the “victories” in higher education under President Donald Trump.
A March report published by theAmerican Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers said that at least 70 institutions offer three-year degrees or are currently considering them.