The Rise of the 90 Credit Bachelor Degree

It’s no secret that the last few years have been a whirlwind of rapid and dramatic change for US higher education. 

We’ve long known that a demographic cliff is looming that will batter enrollment numbers of traditional-aged students. But this has combined with a less expected cultural change of increased skepticism towards the value proposition of higher education, leading to mergers and closures of institutions that had been viable for decades, and in some cases even longer, with more to come. 

The necessity of emergency remote learning during COVID was a setback to perceptions of the effectiveness of online learning, even when properly planned and executed, despite voluminous evidence that there is no inherent significant difference in effectiveness between modes of instruction. 

The distinction between regional and national accreditation in the U.S. ended in February 2020, when the Department of Education allowed all accrediting bodies to operate without geographical restrictions. 

The rise of ChatGPT and other large language models has proven an irresistible shortcut to far too many students, undermining their learning process and demolishing the utility of unproctored essay assignments both in terms of pedagogical value and as a form of assessment. 

And of course, the Trump administration has declared war on academia by threatening funding for research institutions that don’t fall in line and by curtailing visas of international students who are needed more than ever to shore up sagging enrollment numbers.

Amidst all of this chaos, however, another significant development has been working its way into US higher education: the reduction in requirements for a Bachelor degree from 120 credits over four years, to 90 credits over three years. 

The question, however, is why? 

One can certainly see an advantage in students entering the workforce after three years rather than four. An additional year spent studying is a year not earning money, after all. But there’s an overlooked solution to accomplish this that doesn’t require lopping off a quarter of the degree: normalize college and university students attending school in the summer. 

Our academic calendar tailored for the needs of an agrarian society has been obsolete for decades. Since it’s not like today’s students are needed at home in the summer to work on the family farm, let them stay on track where they belong and finish sooner. And those who really need to take the summer off, whether to work or just to spend it idly, can do so. 

Even if somehow summers off are sacrosanct, the argument that four years is too long for students to wait to hold a credential useful in the workplace forgets the fact that an intermediate credential already exists: the Associate degree. An increasing number of students are wising up to how much money they can save by attending community college for two years, earning an Associate degree there, and transferring those credits to a four year school (will we have to stop using that term?) to continue their studies there for two more years. 

There’s no reason to think of the Associate degree as only a rest stop on the way to the final destination. In the same way that many will earn a Bachelor degree, then enter the workforce full time, and then later after an indeterminate amount of time consider returning to school to earn a Master degree, so too could we normalize doing the same with the Associate degree level. It consists of two years of full time study (well, not counting summers). It deserves more respect from students and from employers as a credential in its own right.

A particular eyebrow-raising suggestion from some of the advocates for the 90 credit Bachelor degree is that it can be implemented with no loss of rigor or value compared with a 120 credit Bachelor degree. This would seem to fly in the face of simple arithmetic. After all, unless one is arguing that the Bachelor degree as it is now has no value at all, then, by definition, three fourths of one is less than all of one.

All that said, while the 90 credit Bachelor degree is a solution in search of a problem, it’s still a solution that has been gaining momentum to the point where it’s shrouded with an air of inevitability. If it is to be, is there a best way to implement it? Yes, and DEAC, the Distance Education Accrediting Commission, is showing strong leadership here.

Recently DEAC issued a call for comments on their own proposed approach to allowing their member institutions to offer a 90 credit degree. Importantly, their proposal would not allow institutions to award a full Bachelor degree for 90 credits as has been the case at pilot projects of this concept approved by other accreditors. Instead, DEAC would introduce a new category, the Applied Bachelor degree, that could be awarded at 90 credits, while retaining the requirement that a Bachelor degree be awarded at 120 credit. 

Moreover, they anticipate loophole seekers by making it clear that eligibility to be admitted into a Master degree program would still require a Bachelor degree, not the new Applied Bachelor.

The end result is keeping the Bachelor degree as it is, rather than changing it for the sake of change, while adding an additional qualification to serve as an entry and exit point at 90 credits. It shows a reasonable compromise between accepting the inevitability of this trend while mitigating what could have been its drawbacks. One should hope that DEAC implements this proposal as written, and that other accreditors follow their well considered example.