Listen to article \u2022\u00a00:00 min<\/p>\n
Pennsylvania\u2019s 10 state universities, facing declining enrollment, will consider offering some three-year bachelor\u2019s degrees as a way to make college more affordable and allow students to get into the workforce more quickly.<\/p>\n
The Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education would join a growing number of colleges nationally launching accelerated bachelor\u2019s degrees that reduce the required credits for graduation from the standard 120 to between 90 and 100. <\/p>\n
The development comes as colleges continue to face criticism over costs and some schools try to stem declining enrollments. PASSHE has lost 30% of its enrollment since 2010, though it recorded an increase<\/a> last fall for the first time in 15 years.<\/p>\n \u00bb READ MORE: Pennsylvania\u2019s state university system sees first enrollment increase since 2010<\/a><\/p>\n For a long time, the four-year bachelor\u2019s degree has been the norm. Some students certainly have completed their degrees more quickly, but only by taking all the required credits at an accelerated rate.<\/p>\n The new approach, which PASSHE\u2019s board of governors plans to discuss in October, would reduce the number of credits needed. <\/p>\n \u201cThis initiative would provide more options,\u201d said system Chancellor Christopher Fiorentino. \u201cA three-year degree focuses on essential competencies while preserving the liberal arts core. We can reach more students who don\u2019t fit into the traditional path.\u201d<\/p>\n Three-year degrees emphasize what students should know and be able to do by the time they finish, said Madeleine F. Green, executive director of the College-in-3<\/a> Exchange, which is pushing for three-year degrees to become \u201ca widely accepted path\u201d to a bachelor\u2019s.<\/p>\n \u201cThe benefits are reduced cost and time to degree and equal or better learning outcomes than those resulting from a four-year degree,\u201d Green said. \u201c… It is widely accepted in higher education that time does not equate to learning.\u201d<\/p>\n But the movement already has garnered detractors. The American Association of University Professors and American Federation of Teachers have blasted the idea as more states, including Ohio, Massachusetts, Indiana<\/a>, and Virginia, explore, plan for \u2014 and in some cases even mandate <\/a>\u2014 three-year degrees.<\/p>\n \u00bb READ MORE: Temple has lost average of $200 million annually as enrollment slides, and retention rates are a major issue, internal report says<\/a><\/p>\n The three-year degree movement \u201cthreatens academic integrity by substituting for a comprehensive education a stripped-down curriculum that prioritizes speed over essential intellectual development,\u201d the two groups said in a joint statement <\/a>in response to new accelerated degree programs at Suffolk and Merrimack Universities in Massachusetts.<\/p>\n \u201cCompressing or reducing the curriculum threatens to narrow students\u2019 education at precisely the moment when society needs graduates with stronger critical thinking, communication skills, scientific literacy, and civic understanding,\u201d they said.<\/p>\n There is no comprehensive inventory of colleges nationally that offer three-year degree programs, Green said. A June study by the Rand Corporation<\/a> cited 119 programs that had been \u201cpublicly announced\u201d as of May 2026, she said. Those programs are in fields such as business, cybersecurity, criminal justice, health administration, public health, and design, the report said. <\/p>\n The Higher Learning Commission, the nation\u2019s largest college accrediting body, had approved 58 reduced-credit bachelor\u2019s degree programs at 26 institutions, none of them in Pennsylvania or New Jersey, said Laura Janota, a spokesperson for the commission. <\/p>\n \u00bb READ MORE: Ursinus College lays off 15% of nonfaculty staff<\/a><\/p>\n The Middle States Commission on Higher Education, which accredits colleges in the Pennsylvania and New Jersey, does not require special approval for three-year degrees.<\/p>\n But PASSHE likely would have to get approval from the state. Green, of College-in-3, said both Pennsylvania and New Jersey have regulations that state a bachelor\u2019s degree is 120 credits.<\/p>\n \u201cWe are reviewing all regulatory questions as part of this effort and will share what we learn with the board in October,\u201d said Kevin Hensil, PASSHE spokesperson.<\/p>\n \u2018Product rejection\u2019<\/p>\n Robert M. Zemsky, an emeritus professor at the University of Pennsylvania<\/a>\u2019s Graduate School of Education who co-started College-in-3, said he\u2019s aware of more than 90 colleges planning to or considering offering reduced-credit bachelor\u2019s degrees. The idea attracted quite a bit of attention in 2009 when he first floated the idea \u2014 even a cover story in Newsweek \u2014 he said, but accrediting bodies were not on board at that time.<\/p>\n But now, he said, colleges are beginning to realize that their product is being rejected by students who drop out or transfer after their first year or fail to enroll at all.<\/p>\n \u201cWhat\u2019s different is the key people in higher education are beginning to figure out that it really is product rejection,\u201d he said, \u201cand they\u2019re going to have to redesign what they do top to bottom.\u201d<\/p>\n \u00bb READ MORE: University of the Arts\u2019 $77 million endowment remains mired in court proceedings two years after the school closed<\/a><\/p>\n He estimated by 2027 that there would be 200 colleges offering three-year degrees and 500 by December 2028.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter you get to 500, it will be everywhere,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Fiorentino, the PASSHE chancellor, said he planned in the coming months to propose ways PASSHE could begin to offer a limited number of three-year degrees. PASSHE\u2019s 10 universities are West Chester<\/a>, Cheyney, Commonwealth, Indiana, Penn West, Shippensburg, Slippery Rock, Kutztown, East Stroudsburg, and Millersville.<\/p>\n He said adults with some college credits and no degree may be interested, or partnerships in which students attend community college for two years and then finish their bachelor\u2019s in one-year at PASSHE. <\/p>\n