Does a three-year bachelor’s degree make sense?

Earlier this year, after reading several brief articles citing the surge in three-year bachelor’s degrees, I decided to take a look at what was going on in this area. To say the least, it was a disappointing undertaking since most of what is being done is to cram four years of work into three without any attempt to rethink the bachelor’s degree or to engage in innovation. What I found were simply accelerated degrees where “exceptional” students (apparently chosen for their ability to endure pain and masochistic tendencies) are allowed to attend college year round, using summer sessions to make up time, and to take exceptionally large credit loads. There was a lot of blather about the Bologna Accord and the European model, but no model that would fit the United States or evidence of an American institution actually doing anything other than talking.

But, there was one exception. One university that had engaged in serious consideration of what they intended in a business administration bachelor’s degree, what learning outcomes should be produced, how they could create an experience for the student that was tolerable, and weave an instructional design that makes sense. That program has been a success at Southern New Hampshire University, and I was pleased to see it referenced in a Chronicle of Higher Education report.

This program is interesting because it uses
• cohorts
• individual and group learning
• active learning
• technology for virtual collaboration
• a master planning document (what I view as a curriculum map)
• integration of experiences to bring together competencies learned in modules offered that term

And it eliminated redundancies in courses. It is a real three-year bachelor’s degree that is well thought-out and designed to deliver on clearly articulated learning outcomes. It truly stands out from all the others I could find.

So, it was no surprise to see the comments of the Southern New Hampshire University president at a recent meeting sponsored by Jobs for the Future, Education Sector and the Lumina Foundation on “Thinking Big in a Crisis”. Paul J. LeBlanc is quoted as saying that “in coming years, colleges will move away from using credit hours as a measure of achievement and instead rely on demonstrations of competency” and “I think it’s appalling how little innovation has gone on in higher ed.”

I think Mr. LeBlanc is right. I think the comments posted to the article reveal, though, one of the reasons that there is so little innovation: there is real resistance to change and there is a persistent attitude that the United States has the best education system in the world so leave it alone. That position is increasingly difficult to defend or even to understand.

Your thoughts? Please feel free to leave a comment.

Mike