A reduced-credit bachelor\u2019s degree can improve issues of access and affordability, supporters say, while maintaining educational quality.<\/p>\n
But, as shown at a Tuesday public hearing in Harrisburg, not all are convinced. And some question if such a move would actually have those intended benefits.<\/p>\n
The state\u2019s Senate Education Committee held a hearing Tuesday on the potential of a reduced-credit baccalaureate degree. A nationally growing trend, it reduces the 120-credit hour requirement for a college bachelor\u2019s degree, which traditionally takes four years to complete.<\/p>\n
State law requires 120 credit hours to complete a bachelor\u2019s degree in Pennsylvania. State Sen. Lynda Schlegel Culver, R-Northumberland and chair of the state Education Committee, has introduced legislation that would give institutions the option to offer a reduced-credit bachelor degree program.<\/p>\n
The proposal wouldn\u2019t require all institutions to offer reduced-credit degrees, and Culver understands that not all programs would be suited for a reduced-credit degree. But she said that, as more states \u2014 like neighboring Ohio \u2014add similar regulations, Pennsylvania\u2019s schools and students will lose out.<\/p>\n
\u201cMy proposal, as it stands, is not a mandate,\u201d Culver said. \u201cI want it to be a tool in the toolbox of educational facilities. I truly believe, though, if we don\u2019t do this soon, we\u2019re going to fall behind the other states that are offering these three-year baccalaureate degrees and we\u2019re going to be asking for it \u2026 years down the road when we already fell behind, and we\u2019re going to start exporting more students than we already are to this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Carlow University President Kathy Humphrey is a proponent of the idea. She testified that such a degree would modernize higher education and make things more affordable to students. A 90-credit degree would, in theory, take three years to complete rather than four years with a 120-credit degree.<\/p>\n
Additionally, Humphrey said, reduced-credit programs would be attractive to first-generation, low-income or nontraditional, adult students because, in theory, it would reduce time to graduation. More than 1 million Pennsylvanians have completed some college credit, but have no degree.<\/p>\n
The Middle States Commission on Higher Education, an accrediting agency, does not require special prior approval for three-year or reduced-credit bachelor\u2019s degree programs, said Heather Perfetti, the commission\u2019s president.<\/p>\n
\u201cIf we\u2019re truly committed to reducing the cost of a college degree, then we must be equally committed to examining the structures, practices and longstanding requirements that contribute to that cost,\u201d Humphrey said. \u201cProtecting the quality of higher education, and preserving every tradition of higher education, are not the same. We must have the courage to distinguish between what is essential to student learning and what we have simply become accustomed to requiring.\u201d<\/p>\n
But education union leaders testified that a reduced-credit degree is not the answer to making college more affordable.<\/p>\n
\u201cNot only is the 90-credit degree the wrong answer, it is seeking to address the wrong question,\u201d said Kara Laskowski, vice president for the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties. \u201cChanging the finish line does not improve the starting point, and there is no more reason to believe that a 90-credit degree can be completed in three years than there is to believe that 120 is automatically a product of four years.\u201d<\/p>\n
Wendy Coleman, president of the American Federation of Teachers\u2019 Pennsylvania chapter, also urged the board to reject the proposal.<\/p>\n
\u201cInstead of reducing academic requirements, Pennsylvania should increase funding for public universities, and community colleges, strengthen (the State System of Higher Education,) and expand (state) grants and need-based financial aid and improved transfer agreements so students do not lose credits when changing institutions,\u201d Coleman said. \u201cWe cannot give Pennsylvania students less education and call it affordability. We should be investing in our institutions, our students and reducing the cost, not the education.\u201d<\/p>\n
A reduced-credit baccalaureate degree also would negatively impact community colleges, Coleman said.<\/p>\n
\u201cA 90-credit bachelor\u2019s degree could undermine that model, weaken transfer agreements and place community colleges in direct competition with four-year institutions for students,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n
But the chancellor of the State System of Higher Education, Christopher Fiorentino, noted that similar concerns of educational quality were raised when community colleges were becoming more popular in the 1960s. Now, the community college system has evolved, and Fiorentino\u2019s universities see the reduced-credit model as an idea to collaborate with community colleges.<\/p>\n
A reduced-credit model, he said, puts college within reach for many students.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe don\u2019t have enough traditional-age students graduating from college right now to fill the needs of the employers of the commonwealth of Pennsylvania,\u201d he said. \u201cWe need to find more students to fill that pipeline.\u201d<\/p>\n
Others said that, if the proposal moves forward, a reduced-credit bachelor\u2019s degree program ought to be transparent for students, families, schools and future employers \u2014 even down to how such a degree should be named.<\/p>\n
Lance Kennedy-Phillips, vice provost in Penn State\u2019s Office of Planning, Assessment and Institutional Research, said Penn State supports the flexibility for innovative degree pathways. But, he continued, proposals must take into account academic quality, costs, experiential learning and workforce preparation.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe believe reduced-credit degrees should be part of the broader conversation. But innovation should not be limited to a single degree structure,\u201d he said. \u201cUltimately, the question is not simply how many credits a bachelor\u2019s degree requires, it is whether the graduates possess the knowledge, skills and experiences necessary to succeed in today\u2019s workforce and tomorrow\u2019s economy.\u201d<\/p>\n
Joseph McCarthy, provost and senior vice chancellor at the University of Pittsburgh, also emphasized how bachelor\u2019s degrees prepare students for future careers.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe open question for the shorter degree is not whether it prepares a graduate for the first job, it\u2019s whether it can be designed to adapt to the fourth one,\u201d he said. \u201cThis is worth considering before widespread implementation and it should be explicitly assessed if we adopt this.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tradeoffs of a reduced-credit degree, McCarthy said, must be communicated clearly.<\/p>\n
\u201cA student weighing a reduced credit program should understand the total cost, the time to completion, how the credits might transfer, how graduate schools will treat it, and any affect on licensure, and understand all of that before they enroll,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A reduced-credit bachelor\u2019s degree can improve issues of access and affordability, supporters say, while maintaining educational quality. But,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":310791,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-310790","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310790","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=310790"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/310790\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/310791"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=310790"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=310790"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=310790"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}