The Board of Higher Education is considering allowing colleges and universities in Massachusetts to offer three-year bachelor’s degrees, reducing the typical 120-credit requirement. The proposed measure aims to provide students with a faster, more affordable path to a degree, though members of the board wondered Tuesday about the trade-offs.
To earn a bachelor’s degree, traditionally a four-year degree, students are required to take and pay for 120 credits. An associate’s degree, or a two-year degree, is 60 credits. The new three-year bachelor’s programs that some universities around the country are beginning to offer are sub-120 credits — students will graduate with the same bachelor’s degree as peers who attended school for four years, but they’ll have completed fewer credit hours to do so.
Universities and colleges have previously offered three-year degree completion for students who have a head-start from advanced coursework in high school, take extra classes over the summer or overload their schedule during the semester. Johnson & Wales University in Rhode Island became the first university in the U.S. earlier this year to announce an in-person three-year bachelor’s program launching next fall.