Why are we attempting to compress a rigorous bachelor's degree program into three years?
Isn't
a more appropriate question, why are we talking about 6-years as an
acceptable time-frame for earning a Bachelor’s degree? Even at 6-years,
the national average graduation rate hovers somewhere around only 54%.
There are many valid and not-so-valid reasons given for these low 6-year
graduation rates – need for remediation in math and English before
enrolling in college-level courses, students working while in school to
cover rising tuition costs, confusing course pathways, along with a host
of other challenges.
We know we can do better. We have
to do better. While we don’t have a silver-bullet solution for all of
higher education, we believe that for some institutions and some
students, a 3-year program is one way to effectively address many of
these obstacles. The reduced time-to-graduation means lower tuition
costs and earlier entry to the workforce for students. The partnership
between a community college and university eases the transition from
high school to college and provides cost savings for tuition and living
expenses. The accelerated pace keeps students focused on a prescribed
year-round pathway. And, the support structure built around the program
promotes a cohort learning community, professional and life skills
development, and academic progress tracking.
In
addition to serving students in the 3-year program, CSIT-In-3 will help
us evaluate our traditional Bachelor’s degree programs in order to find
ways to decrease time to degree and increase graduation rates.
Our
claim is that it is possible to graduate students in as little as
3-years, not only without compromising quality, but with improved
quality.
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