From DEI to cost, is it time to consider a three-year college degree?

Amid concerns about higher education ranging from cost to liberal professors, a push to shorten the time required to earn a bachelor’s degree is underway.

Instead of needing 120 hours over four years, one proposal gaining traction would shorten the requirement to 90 hours over three years.

“The biggest problem we have for this proposal getting off the ground and actually being implemented is this idea that college is four years because it’s always been four years, and we can’t change that,” Zachary Marschall, editor-in-chief of Campus Reform, said in an interview. “There’s nothing sacred about four years being the number of years it takes to get a bachelor’s degree.”

Last month, the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia announced that it and representatives from several Virginia public and private universities, as well as representatives from Ohio higher education, would work with groups on the “Scaling College in 3” initiative.

“Colleges and universities throughout the country are already offering three-year degrees, but there is no national model,” Scott Fleming, executive director of the State Council of Higher Education for Virginia, said in a release. “This effort will create new pathways for students to pursue their life and career goals while ensuring a rigorous educational experience.”

Marschall noted that shortening the requisite time for a degree “is already being done on the graduate level.”

“There’s no reason why we can’t extend that flexibility to the undergraduate level,” he said. “The underlying structure of the entire academic calendar and the normal on-time schedule for getting a degree really has not changed in a very long time, and I think it’s time to disrupt that tradition.”

The push already has a proponent in the state legislature.

State Sen. Jerry Cirino, R-Kirtland, said that Senate Bill 1, a measure noted for tackling diversity, equity, and inclusion initiatives head-on, included a requirement that the chancellor review the possibilities and policy issues related to getting to three-year bachelor’s degrees.

“I’ve been looking at that for four years, and so I definitely believe that with some reforms and changing the model of how we deliver higher education, that we can get to three years,” Cirino said. “And I’m not talking with the use of CCP.”

CCP, or College Credit Plus, is a dual enrollment program that provides students in grades 7-12 the opportunity to simultaneously earn college and high school credits.

“What’s magic about 120 hours? Where did that come from? Nobody even knows,” Cirino said. “Nobody remembers why we said four years is what it needs to be to get a bachelor’s degree, and I think we can get that down to 90 hours if we wanted to — in most disciplines.

“There are some disciplines where I would advocate for exceptions, where there’s more training required, where there’s clinical work — let’s say for doctors and nurses; they have clinical hours that they are required to get experience, and we don’t want to cut that short,” Cirino added.

Implementing the idea, which would take several years, raises questions about how that might change institutions, enrollment and budgets.

“Going from four years to three years cuts the cost of attendance by 25% just right off the bat, and that is much more effective and much more what we need than all these financial aid schemes that do nothing to cut the cost of attendance,” Marschall said. “It only just defers who’s paying for what, and that’s kind of like putting a Band-Aid on a crack in the Hoover Dam. So this is a real substantive proposal that would fix a lot of issues we currently have.”