While educators debate the wisdom of three-year college degrees, some ambitious students are going ahead and finishing their coursework in three years anyhow as a way to save thousands of dollars in tuition.
It takes discipline, they say, a clear study plan and, often, an armful of advanced placement credits from high school.
“I didn’t think it was worth it to pay another $40,000 to play with my friends for another year, cheer for a year, and write a thesis,” said Nina Xue, who earned a bachelors degree in history and French in three years this spring at Rice University, where she also found time to be a cheerleader.
Xue says she didn’t start college with a three-year plan, but did have a head start with 26 AP credits. She took more than 15 hours of classes during two semesters and studied abroad one summer for credit. At the start of her third year, she realized she had enough credits to graduate at the end of the year.
It was hard leaving friends behind, but “making my parents pay for another year of school would not have been fair,” says Xue, who plans to pursue a law degree and work in New York City next year.
Only 4.2 percent of U.S. undergraduates earned bachelor’s degrees in three years, according to the most recent statistics from the Education Department. The average student spends six years to get a degree at a public university and 5.3 years at a private institution, according to the College Board.
A handful of colleges have begun offering three-year degree programs, an idea trumpeted by Sen. Lamar Alexander, a former education secretary and college president, at the American Council of Education’s annual meeting in February. He called three-year degree programs the higher-education equivalent of a fuel efficient car.
