The University of Minnesota Morris is excited to share with potential students that they could potentially save $20,000 on tuition costs for a bachelor’s degree, which may appease a public and federal government pushing for a more affordable higher education. The fix? It’s scraping an entire year off a student’s academic calendar with its Degree in Three programs.
Students at the liberal arts university now have the opportunity to opt into a three-year pathway for 34 of its traditional bachelor’s of arts degrees. Everything from English to political science and biology qualifies.
“I think we do remarkably well in offering a liberal arts experience at a public price point, so this seems a really important extension of that, given the environment in the state, the cost of college and the access students have to college classes while still in high school,” said Janet Ericksen, chancellor of UMN Morris.
UMN Morris’ Degree in Three derives from collaborations and insight Ericksen gained from listening to other institutions involved in “College in 3,” a three-year-old pilot program inviting more than a dozen institutions to formulate their three-year degree. One of the pilot’s architects was UMN Rochester Chancellor Lori Carrell, who personally invited Ericksen.
More from UB: Lawmakers, donors disagreed on DEI in 2023. Now, there’s fallout
Minnesota’s university system already allows students to complete degrees in three years unofficially, thanks to the state education department’s Postsecondary Enrollment Option, allowing students in 10th grade and up to enroll in college courses tuition-free. However, Degree in Three standardized the process at UMN Morris by expanding articulation agreements with community colleges and making the institution more “transfer friendly.” The next step is expanding partnerships with tribal colleges, seeing that 30% of UMN Morris’ student body identifies as Native American, according to Ericksen.
While the three-year degree pathways present an abridged college career for students, UMN Morris and UMN Rochester decided to maintain the 120-credit requirement, pushing incoming students to leverage credits earned in high school to stay on track. According to a UMN Morris sample plan, three-year students in their fall and spring semesters will routinely have to take 17 credits per semester—or more. However, Ericksen is confident her students are up for the challenge.
“More than 20% of our incoming class of new high school students this year started last fall with at least a semester’s worth of credit,” she says. “Those are our students. They’re ambitious. They want to move ahead.”
Other universities in the “College in 3,” such as BYU Idaho and the American Public University System, have opted instead to create 90-credit bachelor’s programs, but Ericksen doesn’t compare apples to oranges. Every institution sets up different pathways according to the needs of their students, she says. The three-year degree programs at BYU Idaho are online and directed toward adult learners who may have previously stopped out. “That’s not our niche. That’s not where we’re going.”
As a liberal arts institution, UMN Morris has completely different values that focus on buffing students’ critical thinking and problem-solving skills. To do this, UMN Morris pushes students toward internships and study abroad opportunities to learn how to approach problems differently. It simply can’t be completed in a 90-credit program, asserts Ericksen.
Whether the chancellor is open to changing the 120-credit framework for a three-year degree in the long term is yet to be decided. A rethink on the 120-credit system might make for a stimulating conversation, considering how arbitrary that number came to be in the first place.
“It’s pretty random that 120 was selected,” Ericksen said. “It isn’t for a really strong pedagogical reason, but it is so embedded in higher education that a change would be terrifying.”
