Streamline Undergraduate Degrees to 3 Years

[SLOHusker]

Does anyone else think that with the rise in tuition prices it's time that the traditional 4 year undergraduate degree path to trimmed to 3 years? Keep the requirements for a major and electives, and entirely cut all the required courses for general education. I think most of us who received college degrees at any number of universities know that we were required to take classes that have been of little to no value to us after leaving school. With student loan balances skyrocketing (and many never even being paid back) it's hard to continue justifying the need for required coursework that isn't directed toward the student's major. The student loan issue is actually growing in importance because student loan balances are so high that many will never be repaid (and ultimately the average taxpayer will be on the hook for these loan balances).
The implications of this on student athletes would be that a far larger percentage would be graduates by the time they are starters as junior/senior players. Again, I think this would be beneficial to them since they would have more flexibility on transferring, and most would enter the draft with a college degree.

 

[bmb81664]

I think they should first eliminate any degrees that are of no value when you need to find a real job.

 

[TruHusker]

How about addressing the financial aid mess? The government loans enormous amounts of money to 18 year olds to go to a school that may or may not lead to anything that will benefit them in a career.

As to the OP question, yes no reason it should take that long. I wanted to get my MS in administration in a year and colleges said I couldn't do it. I got special permission and did it easily. What the heck were were so afraid of for me?

 

[RedMyMind]

Does anyone else think that with the rise in tuition prices it's time that the traditional 4 year undergraduate degree path to trimmed to 3 years? Keep the requirements for a major and electives, and entirely cut all the required courses for general education. I think most of us who received college degrees at any number of universities know that we were required to take classes that have been of little to no value to us after leaving school. With student loan balances skyrocketing (and many never even being paid back) it's hard to continue justifying the need for required coursework that isn't directed toward the student's major. The student loan issue is actually growing in importance because student loan balances are so high that many will never be repaid (and ultimately the average taxpayer will be on the hook for these loan balances).
The implications of this on student athletes would be that a far larger percentage would be graduates by the time they are starters as junior/senior players. Again, I think this would be beneficial to them since they would have more flexibility on transferring, and most would enter the draft with a college degree.

Agree with college general ed requirements being messed up. Would those departments close down or take a hit? If so, fine. Who really needs mandatory gym,psychology, sociology or art/music history?

This is my opinion of walking-on these days. Unless someone is walking-on to a pretty poor team and thus has a really good chance of acquiring a scholarship or is promised one (Isaac Gifford), I am torn on having kids walk-on and incur massive student loan debt vs going to a small school.

 

[inWV]

Does anyone else think that with the rise in tuition prices it's time that the traditional 4 year undergraduate degree path to trimmed to 3 years? Keep the requirements for a major and electives, and entirely cut all the required courses for general education. I think most of us who received college degrees at any number of universities know that we were required to take classes that have been of little to no value to us after leaving school. With student loan balances skyrocketing (and many never even being paid back) it's hard to continue justifying the need for required coursework that isn't directed toward the student's major. The student loan issue is actually growing in importance because student loan balances are so high that many will never be repaid (and ultimately the average taxpayer will be on the hook for these loan balances).
The implications of this on student athletes would be that a far larger percentage would be graduates by the time they are starters as junior/senior players. Again, I think this would be beneficial to them since they would have more flexibility on transferring, and most would enter the draft with a college degree.

It’s not a vocational or technical degree. Why is it that the very people who received a first class college/university degree at what would now be considered bargain basement prices want to degrade the experience for coming generations?
Somehow when the US was comparatively less wealthy, it could afford to better support public higher ed.

 

[Charlie Marlow]

Less education isn’t the answer.

 

[Tuco Salamanca]

I’m not sure it would have the desired results. How many kids spend the first two years bouncing between majors? If you force, that may be a bad word, require a student to choose a major at 18 the chances of them still changing that major a couple of times are going to be the same. So instead of taking general education requirements those first two years, they will have a bunch of business classes or chemistry classes or what have you that their next major doesn’t require. That will only prolong the amount of time they’re in school. Or at best keep it at 4 to 5 years

 

[jflores]

Depends on which educational model you subscribe to. back during the Founding generation the purpose of college was to give you a general education and the building blocks that you would then take into an apprenticeship with an employer who would then teach you how to do an actual job. Whether that was a lawyer or a publisher or businessman or whatever.

Companies these days don't want to spend the time or money on training personnel and so they more or less expect colleges to pump out ready labor that can do their work without significant effort on the part of the company.

Basically society has to decide what it wants college to be. If it's to pump out employees for the Boeing's and Johnson Controls and Berkshires of the world then college education structure will need to change some and perhaps be streamlined.

If it's to make more or less generally educated people that companies can mold into whatever than it can exist as present but companies will have to do more with employees than paying for masters degrees and hoping that said employee becomes an expert in the way Boeing wants to engineer things.

 

[kerpal_68]

I'm too lazy today to luck up studies but I wonder how many people with bachelor degrees are being out earned by people with associate degrees in the technical field? So many wasted bachelor degrees.

 

[Bert Lantcaster]

I didn’t need a piece of paper to tell me I’m smart. Just a little pig **** on my boots is enough “education” I need.

 

[RedMyMind]

Less education isn’t the answer.

useful degrees and jobs is the answer. We have the internet for everyone's muse now. Higher Education should be about getting jobs, not just learning.

 

[RedMyMind]

I’m not sure it would have the desired results. How many kids spend the first two years bouncing between majors? If you force, that may be a bad word, require a student to choose a major at 18 the chances of them still changing that major a couple of times are going to be the same. So instead of taking general education requirements those first two years, they will have a bunch of business classes or chemistry classes or what have you that their next major doesn’t require. That will only prolong the amount of time they’re in school. Or at best keep it at 4 to 5 years

I agree and I believe most kids shouldn't go to college out of highschool

 

[BeautifulDayintheNeighborhood]

Does anyone else think that with the rise in tuition prices it's time that the traditional 4 year undergraduate degree path to trimmed to 3 years? Keep the requirements for a major and electives, and entirely cut all the required courses for general education. I think most of us who received college degrees at any number of universities know that we were required to take classes that have been of little to no value to us after leaving school. With student loan balances skyrocketing (and many never even being paid back) it's hard to continue justifying the need for required coursework that isn't directed toward the student's major. The student loan issue is actually growing in importance because student loan balances are so high that many will never be repaid (and ultimately the average taxpayer will be on the hook for these loan balances).
The implications of this on student athletes would be that a far larger percentage would be graduates by the time they are starters as junior/senior players. Again, I think this would be beneficial to them since they would have more flexibility on transferring, and most would enter the draft with a college degree.

Not for engineering degrees... gender studies sure

 

[JohnRossEwing]

I'm too lazy today to luck up studies but I wonder how many people with bachelor degrees are being out earned by people with associate degrees in the technical field? So many wasted bachelor degrees.

Yeah, I agree but not everyone wants to work in a technical field, I know I did not (I could not, I am the least skilled/handy person EVER, I wish I knew how to do stuff!)

So it isn't so much that certain degrees are "worthless" it is that they are so specialized people create the problem of not finding a gig in their field.

I have a great friend that got an English degree...well you don't need that to be an author/writer, you probably do need to it to be an editor, but he stayed in Omaha, not exactly a big book publishing city.

So what did he do? He got a job at TD Ameritrade, because most entry level positions just require you do have any degree.

Later he went back and got a teaching degree as well.

I think HS's should partner with local unions (Elec, plumbing, welding, ect) and let HS students start learning that trade at 16...while also going to HS 1/2 time and getting general credits along with a course that is something along the lines of "Personal Responsibilities" (All students should have to take this. That course would focus on personal finance, 401k, buying a home and car, rental property (either renting or owning one), taxes and credit cards.

The kids in the "trade-program" would make less than a traditional apprentice, with that difference being kicked back to the Union for their time and effort. When the student graduates, they are guaranteed a full time apprenticeship with that Union with a shorter apprentice time, until they are made a full member.

 

[kerpal_68]

Yeah, I agree but not everyone wants to work in a technical field, I know I did not (I could not,

Most don't have the work ethic for it. The office jobs that require a bachelor degree that pay like the person has a GED are not helping the student loan problem.

 

[Stlhuskers]

Those that are convinced a BS is too expensive and people can make as much or more with a 2yr degree or apprenticeship are probably focused on a narrow slice of information/careers. There can be some examples for that no doubt. But that being the norm is hard to fathom. The STEM fields are getting more and more challenging and specialized where a BS degree may not even cut it.
In the end, those going to school need to weigh compensation/expenses and being happy. If you love to turn a wrench and can live your lifestyle... go for it. If you want to work Engineering/Computer Science, you should get a degree or two.

 

[NikkiSixx]

Universities should be for educating intellectuals. Not profit centers trying to educate everyone who can sign a promissory note. Raise the standards much higher to get in.

Move sports into an entirely different type of institution/scenario, separate from the University system. Most of those players are not there to get advanced degrees. Make it a league and pay the players. Let those guys work on it full time.

Make everyone accountable for their student loan debt. You don't encourage wise personal finance with reckless social financial policies.

 

[Child of the Corn]

They could accomplish this by cutting out electives and just have students focus on gen eds and core classes.

 

[Solana Beach Husker]

I think they should first eliminate any degrees that are of no value when you need to find a real job.

Four year universities are for more than "job" skills. We all know that a person can run a business without any business degree but the degree allows you to build connections to past and present entities that might help with your business. It also does act as a filter for prospective employees. The real world changes so quickly that the skills learned in any educational setting are likely to be inappropriate for any current reality. As much as people do not want this...Universities, whether Religious, Conservative, Liberal are really concentrations of relatively intelligent people with similar values coming together to be educated in a way the creates a world view. You then meet a spouse and or group of friends with a similar value set, you have a similar level of education, and then have a community to grow up with...imagine life without a college experience. Who do you marry? How do you meet them? Who are your friends? How do you meet them? Who do you raise your kids with? College creates mobility, an expansion of experience, and an opportunity to meet people outside of a local church or bar.

 

[SLOHusker]

I'm too lazy today to luck up studies but I wonder how many people with bachelor degrees are being out earned by people with associate degrees in the technical field? So many wasted bachelor degrees.

From my experience as a software engineer the answer is A LOT. Most companies and recruiters don't care about the degree as much as they do experience in the field, so if you got an associates degree and learned enough about programming to take an entry level programming job, within ten years you could easily be managing people that have a bachelors degree and fewer years in the field. Also these technical fields change so rapidly that whatever coding language and technologies you learned in college may be of marginal value by the end of the decade. I know this doesn't apply for every every engineering field, but it does apply for a great many STEM career paths.
By and large I think at this point, with a global economy and more expensive college tuition across the country, the idea of general education as part of the base curriculum needs to be rethought. Yes there is educational value to the general education classes (literature, foreign language, PE, etc), but not enough to warrant many thousands more in tuition dollars and student loans that will be paid back years later.

 

[SLOHusker]

They could accomplish this by cutting out electives and just have students focus on gen eds and core classes.

Personally, I think electives work better for giving students the option to tailor their own education. Some electives would inevitably be typical GER classes, while others could be various 'major' strengthening curriculum (or minors).

 

[NikkiSixx]

Programming languages are all the same. Only people who truly don't understand them think they are different. It's the same crap, less a few nuances here and there.

 

[RedSea]

Knocking a year off the K-12 would be an even better move.

 

[SLOHusker]

I’m not sure it would have the desired results. How many kids spend the first two years bouncing between majors? If you force, that may be a bad word, require a student to choose a major at 18 the chances of them still changing that major a couple of times are going to be the same. So instead of taking general education requirements those first two years, they will have a bunch of business classes or chemistry classes or what have you that their next major doesn’t require. That will only prolong the amount of time they’re in school. Or at best keep it at 4 to 5 years

My answer to that is the same one I'm giving my two sons. If you are not ready to commit to a major day 1, wait and work a couple years to save up some money and get an idea for what you might like to do. Kids at 18 really don't know how wastefully expensive those extraneous classes will be and how long it will take to pay back student loans if they dilly dally between majors.

 

[GretnaShawn]

The issue is government backed student loans. They are giving money to kids that have no clue what to do with it and have no real plan to pay it back. And once these loans were handed out to everybody, college prices soared.

Eliminate all government student loans. Banks won’t give loans to people that are getting degrees that don’t have earning potential. The demand for college will go down and the price will drop with it.

Honestly, many jobs that require a diploma shouldn't. I have been begging my boss that we remove a degree from our requirements for our next office hire. My college degree meant little to nothing for my job. We can hire somebody out of high school for less money (initially) and they don’t have to go into debt. It is a win-win.

Edit - Also, bring back apprenticeships. It’s ridiculous that you cannot take the bar exam without going to law school. Or that you can’t become CPA without getting an accounting degree. People should be able to be an apprentice and then take the exam.

 

[dand84]

My youngest is doing his gen eds and first couple of years in the local community college. He can then transfer to the local university and those classes apply. It costs around $800 per quarter + books. Another trend happening in high tech fields are the equivalent of apprenticeships where developers are just learning on the job on smaller projects and then applying to companies.

 

[mkbrkloster]

The last class I needed for my computer science degree was a course in black literature, and that is after taking 2 art history classes. Money grab.

 

[mkbrkloster]

There is a direct correlation between when the government took control of student loans and the price of a college degree. Banks provided a check and balance between the students plan and reality of job opportunity. That doesn't exist any longer.

 

[jmliehr]

Does anyone else think that with the rise in tuition prices it's time that the traditional 4 year undergraduate degree path to trimmed to 3 years? Keep the requirements for a major and electives, and entirely cut all the required courses for general education. I think most of us who received college degrees at any number of universities know that we were required to take classes that have been of little to no value to us after leaving school. With student loan balances skyrocketing (and many never even being paid back) it's hard to continue justifying the need for required coursework that isn't directed toward the student's major. The student loan issue is actually growing in importance because student loan balances are so high that many will never be repaid (and ultimately the average taxpayer will be on the hook for these loan balances).
The implications of this on student athletes would be that a far larger percentage would be graduates by the time they are starters as junior/senior players. Again, I think this would be beneficial to them since they would have more flexibility on transferring, and most would enter the draft with a college degree.

How about we go back to funding college education like we did in the 60’s through the 80’s? The generations that benefitted from low cost college, little debt and good job options turned around and decided future generations didn’t deserve to have the same benefits their prior generations had afforded them. High school grads at that point made as much as current college grads with 1/3 of the debt.

Restore funding, get rid of socialized wealth building tax policies (funding farmers and big corporations = “good”, funding healthcare and education somehow = bad and socialism).

 

[Catch50]

Does anyone else think that with the rise in tuition prices it's time that the traditional 4 year undergraduate degree path to trimmed to 3 years? Keep the requirements for a major and electives, and entirely cut all the required courses for general education. I think most of us who received college degrees at any number of universities know that we were required to take classes that have been of little to no value to us after leaving school. With student loan balances skyrocketing (and many never even being paid back) it's hard to continue justifying the need for required coursework that isn't directed toward the student's major. The student loan issue is actually growing in importance because student loan balances are so high that many will never be repaid (and ultimately the average taxpayer will be on the hook for these loan balances).
The implications of this on student athletes would be that a far larger percentage would be graduates by the time they are starters as junior/senior players. Again, I think this would be beneficial to them since they would have more flexibility on transferring, and most would enter the draft with a college degree.

I have long agreed with this. Especially for medical doctors.

 

[JohnRossEwing]

I suppose you also have to look at how valuable (if at all) the college experience is in the end.

I know the fun aspect of it is very very high...do you gain an experience that helps you later in life?

 

[JohnRossEwing]

Most don't have the work ethic for it. The office jobs that require a bachelor degree that pay like the person has a GED are not helping the student loan problem.

Maybe you are right. I have known a ton of plumbers and carpenters that seem to be lazy during the day but sure as hell work hard for the old side jobs! Ha

 

[Biff Loman]

If you are intent on getting a 4 year degree there is absolutely no excuse for not having an Associates Degree by the time you graduate High School.

 

[Harry Caray]

I suppose you also have to look at how valuable (if at all) the college experience is in the end.

I know the fun aspect of it is very very high...do you gain an experience that helps you later in life?

Networking is the most valuable thing about going to a university. You meet a lot of other people in the same field, and also get connected through the Alumni network and internships.

People don't go to Ivy League schools because of the classes. They go because of the network you build there.

 

[Spectrumalaska]

The belief that everyone should have a chance at a College education is part of what is behind this. The more degrees, the less each one is valued. Supply and demand.

I dropped out of engineering/construction management at CSU in 1984 to realise my dream of getting to Alaska. 35 years later I am a skilled commercial carpenter and the only times I regret not having a degree are the days I am stuck outside in rotten weather.

I say that a degree process should not be shortened, but should be only offered in areas with reasonable expectation of good employment upon completion. Much like trade apprenticeships are.

 

[JohnRossEwing]

Networking is the most valuable thing about going to a university. You meet a lot of other people in the same field, and also get connected through the Alumni network and internships.

People don't go to Ivy League schools because of the classes. They go because of the network you build there.

That is very true and a great point.

 

[bomber89]

Nebraska state colleges have already done steps like this. The Gen Ed credits were reduced from around 50 to around 30. It only takes 120 hours to get a B.S. at Nebraska state colleges thats 8 semesters of 15 hours to get a degree.

Now most high school kids can complete all their Gen Ed requirements while they are still in high school. So you can finish a 4 year B.S. degree in 3 years if you apply yourself.

 

[Cloud@Heart]

Knocking a year off the K-12 would be an even better move.

Most students that are on the four year college track in HS already have 20 or 30 or 40 credit hours of college before they receive their HS diploma. But for my kid, it is strange that he will NEVER have a writing, psychology, or math class at his four year college...... Some of the dual credit/advanced placement credits were well done and rigorous, but some were a joke. I don't know what the answer is, except that whatever model is chosen, it wont be good for 18.5% of the student population!

 

[Spectrumalaska]

Wow Cloud. I had no idea a kid could get that many credits these days. I was proud on the two AP classes I had, and testing out of Freshman comp. That was 15 hours. In 1978.

 

[Bert Lantcaster]

Nebraska state colleges have already done steps like this. The Gen Ed credits were reduced from around 50 to around 30. It only takes 120 hours to get a B.S. at Nebraska state colleges thats 8 semesters of 15 hours to get a degree.

Now most high school kids can complete all their Gen Ed requirements while they are still in high school. So you can finish a 4 year B.S. degree in 3 years if you apply yourself.

You know what else takes 120 hours? AI’ing over 2 weeks to produce food for the American people.