HLC Clears Way for Review of ‘Reduced Credit’ Bachelor’s Degrees

As I understand it the 3-year bachelor's degree in Commonwealth countries is more highly concentrated in your field studied and less or fewer general studies courses.

 

And as far as I know (may be exceptions) you need the Honours degree for entry to graduate programs.

 

Generally speaking, the 3-year bachelor's is a regular degree, while a 4-year bachelor's is a honours degree requiring a dissertation. (Not the same as a doctoral dissertation here. More like a thesis. But that term is used in graduate school in the UK.)

Students in the UK pass rigorous exams (A-Levels) before entry into university. At university, they primarily study their major field. That's different from the US, where students are fed a liberal arts education along with their major, hence the extra year.

The honours degree is the standard credential for entry into grad school in the UK, but not exclusively. Students can be admitted to some universities' master's degree programs without an honours degree. They can often be admitted without a bachelor's degree. These vary by institution and area of study.

Because of the specific design of our system in the U.S., I would be cautious about the development of a 3-year bachelor's degree here, for what should be obvious reasons.

 

Depends on how broadly they want to create the program. If they want to use it for specialized degrees? Could be fine. Maybe instead of a B.S. in Nursing we go to a Bachelor of Nursing and tighten up the curriculum. Given that we allow one to be an R.N. with a diploma or an associates degree we shouldn't have to sacrifice any outcomes. But, perhaps, if one wants to go on to earn an MSN they need to do that last semester as foundational courses or something like that.

Or it could be the exact opposite, a streamlined path toward a higher degree leaving less wiggle room for other fields. Many doctoral programs do not have a major requirement for the undergrad degree. You can have a B.A. in Accounting and get into a PhD program in Sociology. Maybe flip that. 3 Year BA in Philosophy is for those who are going on to earn a Masters and/or doctorate.

The biggest issue I see is how this would complicate the field a bit. So now we're going to have a two year degree, a four year degree and a three year degree with a similar name to the four year degree?

Less of an issue if we could have some sort of established framework for qualifications like NZ. Far more problematic when "or equivalent" is defined very broadly from employer to employer. Is the three year degree equivalent to the four year? Or do we consider the candidate to have "equivalent experience and education" when they have a 3 year degree and 2 - 3 years of work experience?

This feels an awful lot like that 18 credit Masters we talked about at Marywood.

I really cannot wrap my head around how or why that would be a Masters when everywhere else, in every other field, those 18 credits would be a Graduate Certificate. That isn't an "Executive" credential. That's us deciding that a Masters can be as few as 18 credits. If we're going to similarly discount the bachelors then why not do the same for the associates?

It could be good and interesting. I do wish there was a non-liberal arts higher ed alternative at the undergrad level. But I suspect this is not that and it wouldn't be long before we found 3 year programs in liberal arts.

Probably a play to boost graduation rates, honestly.

 

By the way, we already have a 3-year bachelor's degree available. It's called doing AP courses in high school for college credit. "AP" does stand for "Advanced Placement," after all.

Also, some high schools have agreements with some community colleges whereby high school students study at the CC instead of the high school for their last two years. They graduate with a high school diploma and an associate's designed to matriculate the student into the 3rd year of university study.

I did the 18-months-while-you're-serving-on-active-duty bachelor's, followed by the 3-month-I-did't-have-anything-better-to-do second bachelor's.

 

I like the idea of AP/CLEPing your first year (for 30 semester hours of credit), then following up with the 3 year Bachelor's degree in specialized major studies... although this idea steers far away from the previous sacred standard of requiring a 2.5 to 3 years of liberal arts education, and then 1 to 1.5 years of study in your chosen major to round out the 4 year degree.

Without the AP/CLEP provision (or requiring 30 semester hours of liberal arts prerequisites from a community college), I can't conceptualize how they're going to put the 3 year degree into practice without weakening it's standing when compared to the traditional 4 year degree. Or how this would compare with the practice of having a 2 year degree from a community college, then transitioning to a 4 year school to finish off the last 2 years of the degree. (So 2+2=3?)

I could imagine that with a 3 year degree standard the community colleges would just lobby to add the 3d year onto their curriculum and then they would graduate their students with the 3 year degree. Yowza... that would turn the entire system on it's ear!

 

I would love to see the University of Pennsylvania's Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences offer that option.

 

So, a US bachelor's level version of the Associates of Applied Studies or A.A.S. degree?

AAS degrees in my experience are usually not eligible for transfer to a four year school like an AS or AA is and they usually result in someone learning a specific skill or trade to enter the workforce.

What might a 3 year degree offer that a two year AA AS or AAS cannot give you?

 

A 3 year BA would could have all the general education courses and all of the major courses as the traditional 4 year degree just by cutting out the "open" electives available in many programs.

 

As a fyi, Bellevue University accepts the AAS in full so transferring students need only complete their selected major and electives.