A three-year degree track could save students money and time, becoming “the higher-education equivalent of the fuel-efficient car,” Sen. Lamar Alexander, a Republican of Tennessee, writes in Newsweek. The option, which Mr. Alexander has been promoting for a while, is not for every student but could appeal to those moving on to postgraduate study or just looking for savings. Arguing that colleges must change to slow increasing tuition costs and to deal with falling state support, Mr. Alexander, a former University of Tennesee president and secretary of education, also suggests mandatory summer sessions and changing the tenure system as ways to help students graduate faster and to give universities a competitive edge.
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9 Responses to Universities Should Consider 3-Year Degree Track, Senator Writes
vickigreshik - October 19, 2009 at 3:59 pm
First, college faculty will have to have 12-month teaching contracts rather than 9-month. Second, what about courses that have to be taken sequentially? A year of Principles of Accounting, followed by a summer semester of Intermediate Accounting I and Intermediate II taught in the fall, with a concurrent section of Intermediate I for those on the regular track. On and and on it goes. This may work in large schools with lots of students and many sections of courses but it likely won’t be feasible in smaller schools. We can come up with innovative ways for hard-working students to do a 4-year major in 3 years by having them take a prerequisite concurrently with more advanced courses, but it’s always tougher for all parties, students and faculty alike. I’m wlling to change and adapt, but it will be a lot trickier for those of us in smaller institutions with few faculty.
redpants - October 19, 2009 at 4:03 pm
Oh, Lamar. Very motivated studetns can do 4 years in 3 now, but I wonder if it is good to compress a time in life that will not come again for most of us. What’s the rush? Besides, given the cutbacks at many universities, it is difficult enough and sometimes impossible to complete a 4-year education in 4 years now. Isn’t the average time closer to 5 now? Maybe making the 4 year degree possible ought to be our first goal.
irving - October 19, 2009 at 4:18 pm
Great idea, especially for returning adult students and grad students who want to, and in many cases, need to quickly move through college. Returning adult students who have lost jobs are in a hurry. Further, it is taking almost 5 years now to get a 4-year degree…and I agree we need to get back to the 4-year degree and stop wasting student’s time and money. I don’t think we can continue to think in terms of just traditional students who want summers off in this economy. Faculty really need to step up to the plate and be more flexible in their schedules. If faculty would consider at least teaching one night class per year and one summer class every other year, I think universities would better meet the needs of students and especially non-traditional students who need night and summer classes. By doing the every other year schedule, this would still give faculty time off – or consider the 9-month schedule but with a different quarter off other than summer.
ais23 - October 19, 2009 at 5:04 pm
With rising college costs, a 3 year plan is great for the motivated student. I graduated a semester early so I could work full-time before starting law school. Graduating early has saved friends who went to private institutions up to $18,000 for a semester’s tuition. WORTH IT.
11274135 - October 19, 2009 at 6:18 pm
It is always good to have options for students in different life situations. And it is true that most institutions have not kept up with the changing demographics of students now attending college nor have they much anticipated the needs of those who, in the future, will have to attend college (or some sort of post secondary institution) to survive in the 21st century economy. Unfortunately, these kinds of necessary changes are are just the things that educational charlatans thrive on, primarily because more responsible and established places are perfectly willing to leave them this market. Students pay dearly for this in about every way they can pay, whether it is in their tuition or in their subsequent unattractiveness to employers. U of P got stabbed with the satiric knife by SNL in this–”University of Westfield, but don’t tell anyone”– but U Of P is Princeton compared to the other sharks in the educational waters. I think our public universities really do have a responsibility to step forward a meet this demand head on so that the nontraditional student has an equal chance to benefit from subsidized public education rather than being hustled off into the shark pool.
seejay - October 19, 2009 at 8:31 pm
Lamar Alexander had at best an inglorious time as President of The University of Tennessee. Following his tenure as Governor, his appointment was forced by the interruption of an ongoing presidential search with a slate of identified candidates. If chosen president, he said, he would remain in that position for the long term. Within months, he abandoned the position for the post of Secretary of Education. In his time as university president he failed to learn how many Tennessee students are dependent on their summer employment to continue their studies. The Tennessee lottery does pay the tuition for a very substantial number of students, but does not cover their living expenses. The lottery money covers students for four years of study, so no efficiency is gained by forcing them into debt to cover the living expenses they can earn in the summers. There is no efficiency gain or social benefit in moving students more rapidly into a weak employment market or increasing their debt load. If faculty are shifted to teaching year round, this will correspondingly diminish time devoted to research, which drives grant funding to universities. It appears that Senator Alexander has learned few of the lessons that his august offices should have offered him. What is true for his home state is possibly true for the rest of the nation as well.
ucprof - October 20, 2009 at 1:14 am
At big schools, such as the UC, we have summer session where students can take courses they otherwise missed. Faculty have the option of getting summer nineths for teaching during summer session. That said, alot of students are taking summer session courses because they were stuck on wait lists during the academic year – this will be especially true during the current budget crunch. Those of us with research funding do not need to teach in summer session, but the option is there for people who do not have 3/9ths on grants. My dept turns a profit from summer session courses – which gets folded back into temporary FTE budget for the academic year because we don’t have enough ladder faculty to staff all the courses that are demanded by the students. I suppose in the best of all possible worlds, we would have no wait lists and summer session would be used to get ahead rather than to catch up. We also have a nontrivial number of undergrads doing full time research in summer session and it would not be good to lose this part of our program, being that we are a research university. Still I could see many colleges making better use of the summer session especially if it allowed more flexibility for both students and faculty.
mufc1tb - October 20, 2009 at 5:40 am
Accelerated degrees are not that uncommon in the U.S. and in the U.K.. The saving $s case is powerful for the individual, whilst the fortunate can take their time. But, there is a need for defining what a degree is and what volume of time a typical student needs to put in to earn the credits to enable graduation. Quality must be explicit and how a student can best navigate through the system must also be explicit for all to see (2 year > 4 year; degree > masters etc).
esselan - October 20, 2009 at 11:48 am
I work in a college where we do just that — the summer session is a regular semester and most of the students enroll in it. However, I disagree that it accelerates most students’ graduations. Last time I reviewed the data, very few of them actually graduate within that window of 8 straight semesters. There are two reasons for this. Many of them burn out and discover that they need to take time off, though this could perhaps be mitigated with proactive advising systems. More importantly, the way the financial aid system is structured, they simply can’t afford to go to school constantly for three straight years. The need the breaks to work so that they can afford to come back to school. Until the financial aid system changes radically, this option is a pipe dream.