The "Four Year Degree" in Three Years

With the economy down this educational idea is starting to catch some interest again. Basically the premise is this: In a four year degree you complete either 12 quarters or 8 semesters worth of classroom time. This becomes four years when you do either two semesters or three quarters in a year, taking the summers off. However, if you complete another quarter or semester during the summer session you can cut your time at the school down from 4 years to 3, still getting the same amount of academic credit. The college I used to work at had this system in place, so I'm quite familar with it.

The biggest argument to this idea can be summed up as experience vs. economy. While you do not save money on credits by doing all of your coursework in three years you do save money on a year's worth of living expenses while in college, and also you get into the workforce sooner. (Which, in brighter times than we're in now would have meant potentially another year's salary to add to your lifetime earnings.)

However, many opponents of this have argued that because much of college is a "finding yourself" process that this gets lost in the highly focused three year degree programs. The other issue this runs into is how to make the three year student's schedules work with the four year student schedules in terms of course sequence. If All the students who started class together in the Fall of '09 need to take a particular class their junior year which is only offered every other year, that forces the 3 year students to either wait until their senior set of semesters/quarters etc to take the course (which could potentially mess up the subsequent courses which use the course as a prerequisite) or take the class earlier in the course sequences as a sophomore which again could potentially be detrimental to the student due to lack of prior knowledge gained the full sophomore year.

Where I stand on this is somewhere in the middle. I don't think the three year program is for everyone as it does force more focus upon which classes the student is going to take each quarter/semester in order to complete the program in that amount of time. On the other hand, I experienced a huge lack of focus when I was doing my undergraduate course work (is that why it took me three schools and eight years?) because no one ever looked at my schedule and said "WHY are you taking that class? You could be taking a required course instead and spend your money on that course rather than exploring your side interest in political philosophy, which you could do on your own." I didn't really understand until I have started paying back my student loans that each of those meandering side classes I took, while interesting, cost money and delayed my finishing my degree. I truly believe that had I been offered a three year program I would have done it and completed it happily.

However, I don't think any college or university can straddle the fence without shortchanging some students. Either offer the degree in three years or four. I think if you get a student who wants to do the four year degree in three years he/she will figure out how to get the summer classes needed to make that happen. There may also be programs that lend themselves to a three year program better than a four year program, which can also be looked at by the institution.

Where I believe this discussion needs to start happening is with the students themselves. In looking into this more I heard a lot of academics talking about the pros and cons- basically deciding what is best for the students- without hearing student voices from what I could tell.

So, students... what do you think? The traditional four years for a "four year degree" or three years?