College: Four Years, or Three?

In a recent issue of Newsweek, Senator Lamar Alexander (R – TN) made the case for the three-year undergraduate degree. Although such a system is certainly not new, Sen. Alexander, a former Secretary of Education under President George H. W. Bush and president of the University of Tennessee in the late 1980s, garnered considerable attention in making his case, and thus we are presented with a timely opportunity to discuss whether a BA/BS should span four years or three.

According to Sen. Alexander, the three-year degree is the sort of innovation that “can help American universities, long the example to the world, avoid the perils of success,” namely stagnation and inefficiency. Among other culprits like tenure and the short fall-to-spring school year, Sen. Alexander blames the lack of the three-year degree for many of the problems in America’s moribund system of higher education.

Senator Alexander believes a massive shift toward the three year college degree would be a step in the right direction. I believe the Senator is massively mistaken.

The option to finish in three years is already available at many college and universities. Graduation is based on credits earned, not years attended. Although the four-year degree is the standard at many institutions, examples abound of individual students who completed all of their requirements in three years – and very occasionally, less. Why enact a sweeping mandate for the three year college degree when it is already available?

For students who seek the structure and focus of the three-year degree as the norm and not the exception, options exist. Europe is a viable place to study. Many fine institutions, such as UCL and Cambridge University in the U.K., welcome qualified American students with open arms to enroll in their well-developed, well-implemented, tested and true three year programs.

So if Europe is doing it, and doing it well, why can’t we? A systematic shift to a three-year undergraduate degree in the U.S. would require massive reform at multiple levels of education: high schools, community colleges, four-year colleges and universities, and graduate schools, in the very least. An entire overhaul of curriculum would be required to compensate. While A.P. courses offer college credit to students who test well enough today, high schools would need to provide more rigorous college-level courses and teaching to satisfy the demands of one less year of undergraduate training for all students.

The biggest problems that America’s high schools currently face – too many students, too few resources, excessive testing and bureaucracy, massive cuts – are unrelated to the provisions high schools would be required to make in order to prepare students for the three-year degree. Many endemic problems need to be confronted squarely and responsibly before high schools can be asked to pick up the added workload of preparing all students for a three-year undergraduate degree (though I do believe that high schools can make this transition over time; California Partnership Academies are a strong example of the type of highly-focused study programs that would be necessary under a three year university scheme).

The situation would not be any easier for our colleges and universities. By lobbing off an entire year from the permissible duration of the degree in the United States, students who are already struggling to graduate on time in the U.S. system would find such a task even more difficult. Majors are highly impacted; classes are at full capacity or fully unavailable due to financial shortfalls; the quality of course advising is insufficient; the timing of career counseling is too late. All of these are significant factors in ability of the average student to graduate in four years or less. Senator Alexander’s proposal to cancel 25% of the time period already not being met would exacerbate rather than alleviate these problems.

College in America is distinct. The four year degree is a privilege: it allows students to take courses in electives and subjects outside of their major, thus allowing for personal and professional exploration and thus abetting the process of developing a lifelong commitment to learning. Three-year degrees require earlier and more sustained focus to a particular subject. This is wonderful for some, but certainly not for everyone, and would require wide-reaching shifts in our education system as described above.

With four year degrees as the norm, colleges and universities in the United States tend to take a liberal arts approach to learning: broad exposure to an assortment of ideas and a variety of courses over a sustained period of time, with a premium placed on the types of transferable skills necessary for a student to chart his or her own destiny. Before Senator Alexander’s proposal can be seriously considered, a major and far-reaching discussion must occur in the U.S.: what is the purpose of college, and education to a greater extent, in the first place?

The system of higher education in the U.S. is the best in the world. While major changes are necessary to avoid stagnancy, eliminate inefficiencies, and curtail spiraling costs,* arbitrarily knocking-off an entire year from America’s college system – and hoping that the lost material will be automatically made up by under-resourced high schools, enterprising college presidents, and expanded graduate school programs – is not innovative. It’s irresponsible.

*In California, increased investment in the cost-saving and invaluable community college system would support this, rather than the current practice of decimating it with cuts.