Download a transcript of the podcast HERE.
Note: Please check any quotations against the audio recording. The views expressed by guests on this podcast are their own and may not necessarily reflect those of ACTA.

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The programs, which also are being tried at some private schools, would require 90 credits instead of the traditional 120 for a bachelor’s degree, and wouldn’t require summer classes or studying over breaks. In some cases, the degrees would be designed to fit industry needs.

Indiana recently enacted legislation calling for all state universities there to offer by next year at least one bachelor’s degree program that could be completed in three years, and to look into whether more could be implemented. The Utah System of Higher Education has tasked state universities with developing three-year programs under a new Bachelor of Applied Studies degree, which would still need approval by accreditation boards.

More than a dozen public and private universities are participating in a pilot collaboration called the College-in-3 Exchange, to begin considering how they could offer three-year programs. The public universities include the College of New Jersey, Portland State University, Southern Utah University, the Universities of Minnesota at Rochester and at Morris, the University of Wisconsin Oshkosh and Utah Tech University.

Proponents of the three-year degree programs say they save students money and set them on a faster track to their working life. But detractors, including some faculty, say they shortchange students, particularly if they later change their minds on what career path they want to follow.

The Utah Board of Higher Education in March approved the new three-year degree category. Various areas of study would be tied to specific industry needs, with fewer electives required. These degrees are broader than two-year associate degrees, but narrower than a full four-year bachelor’s.

“We told the institutions to start working on them now and developing the curriculum,” Geoff Landward, commissioner of the Utah System of Higher Education, said in an interview. “Also, we want them to find industry partners that would be willing to hire people with bachelor’s degrees of this type.”

He added: “We created a sandbox for our institutions to play in.”

Once created, individual programs would need both national accreditation and state Board of Higher Education approval.

Landward said he has taken note of criticism that the three-year programs might “cheapen” the bachelor’s degree by shortchanging students who wouldn’t receive a broad college education. But he said students could save on tuition, get a head start in the workforce and meet the needs of industries that are looking for certain skilled workers to address shortages in the state.

That includes nursing, he said, where requiring a four-year degree means taking lots of electives that have nothing to do with the career.

Utah State University’s current four-year nursing program, for example, suggests several electives along with the required anatomy, math and biology courses as prerequisites during freshman and sophomore years.

“We think if we are partnering with industry and they help us develop it, I don’t think it cheapens the degree,” Landward said. “I think it creates a very specific degree.”

Robert Zemsky, a University of Pennsylvania professor and founding director of the university’s Institute for Research on Higher Education, began proselytizing for the three-year college movement about a dozen years ago.

He said the idea has gotten traction recently because “we are wading in the deep waters of righteous anger” at colleges and universities because of the perception that four-year degrees are not worth their high costs.

A Pew Research Center survey released last week found only 1 in 4 American adults said it is extremely or very important to have a four-year college degree as a means to getting a good-paying job. Only 22% of the respondents said the cost is worth getting a four-year degree even if the student or their family has to take out loans.

Zemsky suggested that a shorter time span also would lead to higher college completion rates. More than a third of students who began seeking a bachelor’s degree in fall 2014 at a four-year school failed to complete their education at the same institution in six years, according to the National Center for Education Statistics.

Zemsky said 27 colleges and universities have embarked on creating three-year pilot programs and predicted 100 would be doing so in another year.

Over the past 10 years, Zemsky said, schools have been ignoring the desires of students and instead creating their curricula around the preferences of faculty — which is where most of the opposition is coming from.

Last year, at a conference of the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties, a bargaining unit for professors, President Kenneth Mash said the overwhelming number of college faculty nationwide “have a visceral disdain for the idea.”

In an interview with Stateline, he said three-year programs would hurt students too, creating a “two-tiered” system under which wealthy students would get a full four-year education and lower-income students a cheapened three-year degree.

“If it’s going to be a four-year degree, they should name it something that indicates it’s not a B.A.,” said Mash, who also is a political science professor at East Stroudsburg University. “We don’t know that employers will treat them the same.

“I’m on board, as most faculty are, with the notion that people want to increase their job opportunities. But that’s not all there is to a college degree,” he said. “Degrees prepare you to be a better citizen, a better parent, and on and on.”

And he said a broad education is what makes it possible for students to change jobs and careers many times during their working lives. “It’s really that baking in liberal arts … that makes it possible for people to do different things in their lifetimes.”

Indiana’s new law

Indiana enacted a law in March that requires each public institution that offers bachelor’s degrees to review all the four-year degrees with an eye toward making some of them three years. And the law requires that by July 1, 2025, each state university offer at least one bachelor’s degree that can be completed in three years.

Indiana state Sen. Jean Leising, a Republican who sponsored the measure, pointed out that every extra year of college costs the students, their parents and the state.

But she noted that not all degrees lend themselves to compressed curricula. “If you’ve got a kid in pharmacy [studies], they are not going to able to get through it in three years. Engineers aren’t going to be able to do it in three years. But some of the other kids will.”

Chris Lowery, Indiana’s commissioner for higher education, said the law will encourage schools to think about how to create 90-credit-hour bachelor’s degrees: “How feasible is this, would you still have the quality, would you still have the agency?”

Three-year degrees allow for choice, he added. His daughter, for example, had enough AP credits after high school to make a college degree feasible in three years, but opted to go to school for four, because she wanted to have enough time to study so that she could get “straight As” as well as to have time for extracurricular activities.

“But for a lot of students, the finances are tighter,” he acknowledged.

Credentialing requirements

At both public and private universities, the new three-year degree programs that require fewer credits would need national accreditation.

The Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities, a regional credentialing agency, accredited several three-year bachelor’s degrees at two private schools, Brigham Young University-Idaho and Ensign College, last year. The degrees are in applied business management, family and human services, software development, applied health and professional studies.

Sonny Ramaswamy, the commission’s president, said in an interview that the three-year programs underwent two years of evaluation before being awarded accreditation.

He said the evaluation showed that competency in many professions could be attained in three years instead of four, and that graduate schools were willing to accept three-year bachelor’s as a credential for the pursuit of higher degrees. He noted that European college degrees often are completed in three years.

“We said, ‘We will approve you, but this is a pilot,’” Ramaswamy said. The schools will provide data to show their students have earned a good education, he added.

“My intuition is that it will head in the right direction,” he said. “The public is calling for innovation.”

Michael Poliakoff, president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a nonprofit organization that says its mission is promoting academic freedom, excellence and accountability at colleges and universities, said “fluff” courses strengthen the case against a 120-credit hour bachelor’s degree.

“Let people get a good foundation with a strong general education core, strong skills and some electives,” Poliakoff said in an interview. “That’s what a responsible university should be doing.”

The council does an annual survey of higher education institutions and grades them A through F on what the group calls “core curricula” — the proportion of courses dedicated to mathematics, literature, composition, economics, laboratory science, American history and government, and foreign languages.

Poliakoff said the amount of debt students are accumulating over four years is “sinful” and unnecessary. Colleges and universities must meet the concerns of students and their families, he said.

“A 90-credit baccalaureate degree is a pretty good way to tighten up the bolts,” he said.

This article originally appeared on Stateline on May 30, 2024.

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Seven colleges received a perfect score for their core curriculum, according to a higher education reform group.

The American Council of Trustees and Alumni added an “A+” score to its “What Will They Learn” grades for the first time in the nearly 30-year history of its report card. Of the seven colleges, four are Catholic, one is Orthodox Christian, one is Protestant, and another is a public university in Virginia.

Those seven schools are: “Christopher Newport University, Patrick Henry College, Thomas Aquinas College in California, Thomas Aquinas College in Massachusetts, Thomas More College of Liberal Arts, the University of Dallas, and the University of Saint Katherine,” according to the latest rating.

Patrick Henry College is Protestant, while the University of Saint Katherine is Orthodox.

The group’s vice president of policy commented on why Catholic and Protestant schools were most of the highly rated colleges.

“There are likely two reasons that Catholic and Christian schools receive high What Will They Learn? grades,” Bradley Jackson told The College Fix via a media statement.

“Liberal arts education has long been a hallmark of Catholic and Christian education in the United States and abroad, and the What Will They Learn? system evaluates universities on their requirements in the liberal arts,” Jackson stated. “We also find that institutions with a clear sense of mission, which religious institutions often have, perform quite well in our rating system.”

ACTA grades colleges on “seven essential subject areas” which are, according to Jackson, “Composition, Literature, intermediate-level Foreign Language, U.S. Government or History, Economics, Mathematics, and Natural Science. ‘A+’ institutions require all B.A. and B.S.-seeking students to take all seven of these subject areas at the college level.”

Public institutions, on the whole, perform better than private colleges, according to Jackson.

He said 35 percent of public universities “receive grades of ‘B’ or higher,” whereas only 27 percent of private universities do.

“Although only one of our ‘A+’ schools is public, we find that many public schools reviewed do prioritize robust liberal arts requirements for undergraduate students,” Jackson stated.

Christopher Newport University in Virginia is one of the public schools that prioritizes the liberal arts.

It deferred to a news release when asked by The Fix for further comment.

“Christopher Newport’s innovative core curriculum and rigorous academic standards have once again earned the highest grade possible,” the university stated in a news release.

“Christopher Newport’s Liberal Learning Core Curriculum comprises a minimum of 40 semester hours of coursework, and includes Liberal Learning Foundations and Areas of Inquiry,” the university stated. “This comprehensive program of study develops students’ capacities of empowerment, knowledge and responsibility.”

Thomas Aquinas College, which received an A+ for both its California and Massachusetts campuses, said the grade is “a much-appreciated acknowledgment of the depth and rigor of the College’s program of Catholic liberal education.”

Spokesman Chris Weinkopf told The Fix the school is “grateful for this recognition of the hard work that our faculty and students joyfully undertake, inspired by their shared love for learning and the truth.”

Editor’s note: The article has been updated to clarify the University of Saint Katherine is Orthodox, not Catholic.

This post appeared on The College Fix on May 29, 2024.

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Oases of Excellence are outstanding programs at colleges and universities across the country that are dedicated to educating students for informed citizenship in a free society by maintaining the highest academic standards, introducing students to the best of the foundational arts and sciences, teaching American heritage, and ensuring free inquiry into a range of intellectual viewpoints. ACTA’s Oases of Excellence network includes over 90 programs at a wide range of institutions. The network is a forum for sharing ideas and best practices for running an independent liberal arts program and serves as a valuable resource for donors who are committed to supporting academic excellence.  

The mission of the American Foundations minor is to deepen cadets’ understanding of the Constitution in alignment with West Point’s overall mission of forming leaders of character ready to serve the Army and the nation. The minor’s courses, guest speaker program, and academic enrichment experiences create an interdisciplinary community of cadets and faculty dedicated to understanding America’s Founding principles. Hugh Liebert, co-director of the minor, remarked, “We are honored to receive ACTA’s recognition as an Oasis of Excellence.”  

ASU’s Center for American Institutions is an interdisciplinary academic program dedicated to “preserving and renewing our fundamental American institutions to maintain well-ordered liberty.” The center undertakes research projects to examine the “state and health of American institutions”; offers courses centered on maintaining a constitutional republic; and holds regular lectures for the campus community and the greater Phoenix area. Professor Donald Critchlow, director of the center, stated, “ACTA’s recognition of CAI’s mission by honoring the center as an Oasis of Excellence is humbling, especially to be among the other Oases who are equally committed to restoring the promise of higher education. Dr. Michael Poliakoff and his fine team at ACTA should be commended for their pursuit of academic excellence, freedom, and accountability.”  

Oases of Excellence and the faculty who lead them are restoring the legacy of higher education, one student at a time. ACTA President Michael Poliakoff remarked, “A strong liberal arts education has become all too rare at a time when students need it the most. These centers’ efforts to prepare students for an informed and engaged life of the mind are vital for the strength of our civil society and the health of our nation.”  
   
A complete list of ACTA’s Oases of Excellence can be found here. 

MEDIA CONTACT: Gabrielle Anglin
EMAIL: ganglin@goacta.org

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With the guidance of our Council of Scholars, ACTA has identified seven subject areas that together make up a foundational core curriculum in the liberal arts. What Will They Learn?® evaluates curricular and general educational requirements at over 1,100 U.S. colleges and universities, rating each institution’s curriculum on an “A+”–“F” scale based on whether they require students to study these essential subject areas.  

The seven subject areas are Composition, Literature, (intermediate-level) Foreign Language, U.S. Government or History, Economics, Mathematics, and Natural Science. What Will They Learn?®’s new “A+” grade identifies liberal arts institutions that require students to take courses in all seven subject areas. Out of 1,134 universities reviewed by What Will They Learn?®, only seven universities earn an “A+”. 

These seven institutions are Christopher Newport University, Patrick Henry College, Thomas Aquinas College in California, Thomas Aquinas College in Massachusetts, Thomas More College of Liberal Arts, the University of Dallas, and the University of Saint Katherine. Each of these universities stands out for its rigorous curriculum and commitment to liberal arts education. 

Our “A+” schools are models of educational quality and pedagogical integrity. These institutions deserve the consideration of academically serious students and should serve as inspiration to educators seeking to make students’ college years some of the most rewarding and transformative years of their lives.

MEDIA CONTACT: Gabrielle Anglin
EMAIL: ganglin@goacta.org

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“The Honors College at Houston Christian University shares in the university’s central confession, ‘Jesus Christ is Lord,’ by providing an integrated general education for undergraduate students willing to approach their studies with modesty and reverence. […] In small classes designed for transformative conversations, students and faculty seek truth together,” says program director Gary Hartenburg, Ph.D. “The Honors College curriculum stretches from the ancient world to the twentieth century, and students revel in its poetry, drama, history, art, philosophy, science, psychology, economics, mathematics, and theology. […] Our Honors Scholars come from all over the world and reflect the makeup of Houston as a global leader of diversity and growth. We are grateful to ACTA for recognizing the Honors College at HCU as a Hidden Gem.”

Gabriella Hsu, ACTA’s Senior Program Manager for Curricular Improvement says, “ACTA’s Hidden Gems program highlights major, minor, and certificate programs that offer students an unparalleled education in the liberal arts. Hidden Gems programs are so named for the high caliber of their faculty, thoughtfully structured curricula, and commitment both to the challenges and rewards of liberal education. Students enrolled in Hidden Gems programs are drawn into community and discussion rooted in the rich interdisciplinary study of the liberal arts and sciences. In its mission to support academic excellence, ACTA believes that the Hidden Gems program is an invaluable resource for students seeking a robust, collegial, and enriching education.”

ACTA’s Hidden Gems initiative serves as a complement to our What Will They Learn?^® (WWTL) project. WWTL rates the core curriculum requirements at over 1,100 schools to determine which institutions provide a rigorous, liberal arts-oriented general education. Programs designated as Hidden Gems offer a robust liberal arts education regardless of their home institution’s core curriculum. WWTL and Hidden Gems help prospective students locate universities and programs that will prepare them for successful careers, informed citizenship, and human flourishing.

See a comprehensive list of all Hidden Gems here.

MEDIA CONTACT: Gabrielle Anglin
EMAIL: ganglin@goacta.org

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“The PPE Program focuses on understanding how social, political, and economic institutions, as well as considerations of justice, rights, and liberty, have, do, and should interact and shape one another. At its heart is the recognition that philosophy, political science, and economics are each individually important to understanding the world in which we live—but that bringing the three disciplines together illuminates issues that otherwise are obscured by the shadows cast by relying solely on one or the other,” says Geoffrey Sayre-McCord, founding director of the PPE program. “We are proud, to say the least, to counted among ACTA’s Hidden Gems.”

Gabriella Hsu, ACTA’s Senior Program Manager for Curricular Improvement says, “ACTA’s Hidden Gems program highlights major, minor, and certificate programs that offer students an unparalleled education in the liberal arts. Hidden Gems programs are so named for the high caliber of their faculty, thoughtfully structured curricula, and commitment both to the challenges and rewards of liberal education. Students enrolled in Hidden Gems programs are drawn into community and discussion rooted in the rich interdisciplinary study of the liberal arts and sciences. In its mission to support academic excellence, ACTA believes that the Hidden Gems program is an invaluable resource for students seeking a robust, collegial, and enriching education.”

ACTA’s Hidden Gems initiative serves as a complement to our What Will They Learn?® (WWTL) project. WWTL rates the core curriculum requirements at over 1,100 schools to determine which institutions provide a rigorous, liberal arts-oriented general education. Programs designated as Hidden Gems offer a robust liberal arts education regardless of their home institution’s core curriculum. WWTL and Hidden Gems help prospective students locate universities and programs that will prepare them for successful careers, informed citizenship, and human flourishing.

See a comprehensive list of all Hidden Gems here.

MEDIA CONTACT: Gabrielle Anglin
EMAIL: ganglin@goacta.org

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Download a transcript of the podcast HERE.
Note: Please check any quotations against the audio recording. The views expressed by guests on this podcast are their own and may not necessarily reflect those of ACTA.

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It’s not. And as tuition and fees rise, some students would likely benefit from a bachelor’s degree that could be completed more quickly, potentially in three years.

The New England Commission of Higher Education had been among the last of the national accrediting agencies to refuse to consider accrediting a bachelor’s degree program with fewer than 120 credits. That changed Wednesday when the commission announced that for the first time it would consider proposals for programs that allow students to earn a bachelor’s degree with fewer than 120 credits.

“The impetus is to find a way to reduce college costs and get people out into the market sooner,” commission president Lawrence Schall said.

The announcement is an important positive step that should encourage the rise of innovative programs that let students obtain a degree more quickly and cheaply. It will not be right for every school, major, or student, but colleges should think seriously about whether a shorter degree program would appeal to some of their students. As schools begin to implement these programs, the data that emerge could provide valuable insights into how to make college more efficient without compromising quality.

Some schools already offer three-year degrees, but they still require 120 credits. Students either get credits for Advanced Placement tests or early college programs or they take classes year-round. But in the last few years, a national initiative spearheaded by Robert Zemsky, a retired University of Pennsylvania professor, and Lori Carrell, chancellor of the University of Minnesota Rochester, has gotten about 20 schools to commit to piloting a three-year bachelor’s degree with fewer than 120 credits.

The two New England schools that have expressed interest are Merrimack College in North Andover and New England College.

New England College is exploring a 100-credit degree in criminal justice. The program cuts some electives and combines general education and criminal justice classes, for example, by letting students fulfill a science requirement by taking forensic science. Lesperance said he thinks the program will attract students who are not interested in the full college experience of sports and extracurriculars but who want a credential for a job — for example, police officers who would get paid more with a college degree.

Merrimack College officials have said, in a presentation to NECHE, that they are envisioning a pilot program with a small number of students in a handful of non-licensure majors like business, health science, physics, and liberal arts. It would target lower-income, high-ability students who plan to pursue a graduate degree.

A handful of schools elsewhere — including Brigham Young University-Idaho and its affiliated Ensign College, University of Minnesota campuses in Morris and Rochester, and West Virginia-based American Public University System — have had similar programs approved under different accrediting bodies. But New England schools have been stymied until now by NECHE’s unwillingness to approve these programs.

NECHE’s new guidelines say any program must be at least 90 credits with classes in a major, general education classes, and electives. It needs to have a degree name that distinguishes it from a typical bachelor’s degree, and the school must be transparent in marketing materials that some graduate schools or employers might not consider it a bachelor’s. The school needs to assess program outcomes related to student retention, graduation rates, learning, and employment.

Offering a lower-cost, shorter degree could increase chances of student success. Over the years, college tuition and fees have steadily risen, and many graduates leave school with enormous student loan debt. Around one-quarter of first-time bachelor’s degree students and 40 percent of all undergraduate students drop out before obtaining a degree, according to the Education Data Initiative, often for financial reasons.

Michael Poliakoff, president of the American Council of Trustees and Alumni, a nonprofit focused on improving educational quality, suggested that colleges could cut electives, revise core curriculums, and still offer a quality education. “A well designed 90-credit-hour program could get students ready for work and citizenship without the financial and opportunity costs,” Poliakoff said. “For accreditors to dig their heels in and say only a 120-hour program will be sufficient is simply ignoring reality.”

There are existing tests that measure how colleges are performing and whether students are learning, which could be used to assess how much students are learning from a shortened bachelor’s program compared to a traditional degree. As Michael Horn, an education writer and lecturer at Harvard who cofounded the Clayton Christensen Institute for Disruptive Innovation, said, “I’d much rather be certifying demonstrations of learning as opposed to focusing on is it three years or is it four years.”

It’s an attitude accreditors and schools should adopt. Ensuring students are learning well is more important than regulating how long it takes them to learn.

This article appeared in The Boston Globe on March 6, 2024.

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