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?

2 Year Schools Vs. The Economy

My favorite blog today had a post that made me re-think the advice that I've been giving students for several years now: Pick a school and stay there. Make sure it's the right one because you don't want to transfer if you don't have to.

The reasoning behind this is fairly simple: You don't know what will and won't transfer until you start working with the school you are transferring to. You may have taken English Comp 101 in School #1, but if School #2's writing requirement is English Comp 201 you may very well be out of luck on the transfer. Then, in addition to paying for the class the first time at School #1 you've also got to pay it again at School #2.

Now, the other school of thought is go to a 2 year community college and get some of these generals out of the way at a cheaper price. I know of one CC that charges around $76/credit. That's like giving away education! :) So, at that rate you figure your entire 3 credit writing class costs you $228 plus whatever books you needed. That may very well be less than one credit at a four year school (the private school I am attending now is $333/credit- fairly reasonable) so the savings are obvious. Pay $228 for the writing class or $999? (Or, as I would say, risk ending up taking both at $1,227?)

But now our economy is in the crapper and parents are often re-looking at that four year college tuition bill as something that is out of their reach for the time being. For the time being, yes, but maybe not in two years. So this is causing an influx of students who would, in normal times, go to a four year college (public or private) but are choosing the least expensive route for the immediate moment and planning on transferring either with a 2 year associates degree or at least the general education credits taken care of.

What is causing me to re-think my position is that is this going to end up being more expensive in the long run? If you can transfer in... let's say 5 of 8 classes in the required general education classes and one of those three leftover requirements at 4 Year College was going to be retaken because the 2 Year credits weren't transferred what are you looking at? Let's use the $76/credit example vs. the $333/credit for the four year and average a three credit class.
-You would have saved $3,885 on those five transferred classes.
-The remaining three classes cost you $2,997 plus the $228 of the class you had to retake at College2.
- Total cost of "Gen Eds" with transferring: $4,365
-Total Cost had you done it all at School #2: $7,992

Now, this model is assuming that a college is a college is a college is a college and that any student would like College #1 every bit as much as College #2 up the road. That is where I have the hardest time swallowing this.

What if the student hates College #1 and gets such a poor impression of college (I've seen more than one student assume every college is as bad as their first bad experience at any school, no matter what type) that they decide not to transfer into College #2. Then we're possibly left with student loan debt and no degree to show for it.

There are students that thrive on the culture of college who may not get it if they stick to the cheapest, closest to home option. So it makes me wonder if we're not setting ourselves up for long term failure to save a few dollars right now.

Of course, there are also the students that will thrive anywhere and these are the students that are pointed to when it's said "But this system works!" Of course it does... for some. But for some students I worry that the risk of not going to the "right" college (not just financially) the first time will have bigger risks of the student not persisting through either to the AA degree or transferring on to get a bachelor's degree.

That's where this economy puts us in such a hard place with education. Do we go for what is the most feasible at the moment but possibly sacrifice some long term outcomes or do we put ourselves in over our heads to do it right the first time?