Ensign and other schools redesign bachelor’s programs with fewer required credits
RAND, the nonprofit research group, reported this spring that 26 U.S. states now have at least one college offering a reduced-credit three-year bachelor’s degree.
The condensed programs have grown rapidly in popularity; as of this spring, RAND counted 26 U.S. states with at least one college offering such a program. The organization’s count captures states that have at least one such program, not the total number of three-year bachelor’s degrees available nationally.
For Giles Sims, 34, the trend arrived as a practical solution. The laid-off web developer had been passed over for jobs because he did not have a college degree. With a wife and a widowed mother to help support, Sims said he could not afford four years out of the workforce.
“I can’t afford to be out of the workforce for four years. That just seems like forever, and the three-year made it seem less daunting,” said Sims, a student at Ensign College, a private Salt Lake City school.
Ensign recently changed all its bachelor’s degrees to require fewer classes than a traditional four-year program, putting the school among the institutions counted in the RAND survey.
Advocates for the three-year format describe the condensed degrees as a solution to the college affordability crisis and a godsend for nontraditional students like Sims.