Tuesday, August 27, 2013

A three-year degree?


I'm working on research to figure out who decided that American college students have to go to college for four years to get a bachelor's degree. I'm not convinced that's necessary for everyone.

One thing colleges need to do is to figure out how to offer a degree in three years. Personally, I am strongly in favor of the traditional "liberal arts education," and I have one. However, many students don't want this, and, ipso facto, they don't need it.

Typically, a four-year undergraduate degree includes about a year of  "liberal arts, general education" courses required for every major: the traditional liberal arts courses in history, the arts, ethics, foreign language, science and so on.

Many students want the specific, academically rigorous training for a degree in psychology or biology or managements or whatever, and they don't want the general education "liberal arts" add-on.

I'm not the first person to suggest this: Let those students earn a degree in three years, call it a "professional degree" or something to distinguish it from the traditional four-year liberal arts degree.

And let them (and their parents) chop 25% off the cost of their college education.

Let's chew on this idea for a while. There's a lot of common sense in it.















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