3-Year Degrees Grow in Popularity

The first in-person three-year degrees launched just over a year ago, but the programs are already one of the hottest innovations in higher education. States including Virginia, Ohio and Texas have initiated statewide efforts to develop three-year degrees, while many higher education boards and public college systems elsewhere have begun exploring the possibility.

It’s difficult to determine the exact number of three-year programs currently on offer. A study by the global policy think tank RAND found 119 such programs as of May, but a significant number have launched this fall, meaning that number is now outdated. The College-in-3 Exchange, the research and advocacy organization for these degrees, has 92 members, but not all of them have begun their programs yet, while some have established more than one.

Regardless of the exact number, the landscape for three-year degrees—which some institutions call “applied bachelor’s” or “career-focused bachelor’s” degrees—is vastly different now than it was just a year ago, when the handful of programs on offer were based primarily at small private colleges. As three-year degrees have proliferated, the types of institutions that offer them have expanded, with large public institutions like Arizona State University and Oklahoma State University joining the fray this fall.

“What’s really striking is seeing all the different institution types that are exploring or launching programs,” said Stephen Payne, senior director for institutional affordability initiatives at Strada Education Foundation. “The breadth of institutions exploring this, I think, is pretty noteworthy.”

But for colleges that have been offering three-year degrees for almost three semesters now, the story isn’t quite as rosy. Leaders at colleges such as Johnson & Wales and Plymouth State Universities in New England and Weber State University in Utah told Inside Higher Ed they’ve experienced some growing pains. The biggest challenge, all three said, is simply building awareness: Despite what a big deal the three-year degree has become in higher education circles, parents, students and counselors aren’t widely familiar with the concept yet. And though recognition is growing, it hasn’t led to massive uptake right off the bat.

“These have kind of been built on a premise—and I’ll just call it a false premise—of the Field of Dreams idea: If you build it, they will come,” said Brent Horn, associate provost for academic policy, process and shared governance at Weber State. “There’s this excitement around [the programs] … but do students actually know about them, and do students actually realize what the value is? And so I think we are still in this early stage of, how do we actually market these things?”

‘The Novelty of It’

The concept of three-year bachelor’s degrees isn’t new; they’re the standard in some countries’ higher education systems, and they first cropped up in the U.S. back in the late 2000s as accelerated programs in which students took courses year-round to fit 120 credits into three years. They began as a response to the 2008 recession, allowing students to start their careers earlier while saving a year’s tuition along the way.

But reports at the time argued the degrees were not “catching on.” In 2011, The Washington Post reported no takers for an accelerated program at Lake Forest College in Illinois, while only five enrolled in the University of North Carolina at Greensboro’s now-defunct UNCG in 3 offering. Some colleges had had accelerated degrees available for decades, but those also saw limited interest; Judson College in Alabama saw only about 100 graduates from its accelerated program between 1998 and 2011, the same article said.

The latest wave of three-year offerings, which began in 2024 with the approval of online reduced-credit programs at Ensign College and Brigham Young University–Idaho, is different. Instead of requiring students to take all 120 credits in a shortened time frame, colleges are reducing the minimum number of credits for a bachelor’s degree to around 90, though the exact number varies. Usually, that involves keeping general education and degree requirements essentially intact and eliminating or decreasing the number of electives.

Interest in the new programs seems stronger than in 2011. Johnson & Wales University has 135 students across four three-year programs and Weber State has 30 across three programs.

Still, some institutions are not attracting quite as many takers as they’d hoped. The main barrier, said Nathaniel Bowditch, provost and vice president of academic affairs for Plymouth State University, is awareness and understanding.

“The hardest part, I think, has been the novelty of it. It’s a lot to ask a student or a family to try this new thing … [or] to say to someone, ‘Yeah, this new degree pathway that you’ve never heard of and never seen could be right for you,’” he said.

Plymouth State introduced five three-year applied bachelor’s degree programs quickly, taking them from accreditor approval to a fall 2025 launch in about year, which didn’t leave time to promote them. Learning how to market the degrees has required some on-the-job training, and the university’s efforts thus far have yielded mixed results; while applications grew from the 2024–25 admission cycle to 2025–26, deposits held steady.

Advocates say that’s to be expected. Madeleine Green, executive director of the College-in-3 Exchange, noted that many colleges that have launched three-year programs do not have extensive marketing budgets for getting the word out. Knowledge of the three-year bachelor’s is likely to take time to grow organically as more students enroll in—and finish—the programs.

“We don’t have graduates out there talking it up. We don’t have employers who said, ‘Gee, we’ve had three-year graduates. They’re really great or not so great,’” she said.

And not all programs are equal. At Weber State, which launched two three-year programs in 2025 and one this fall, the bachelor’s of applied studies in sound production and recording has drawn more students than the others. That success is likely because the sound production major was actually upgraded from a two-year to a three-year degree at the recommendation of employers in the field, and many existing two-year students decided to stay on for the extra year, Horn said.

The bachelor’s of applied studies in applied politics, philosophy and economics, which launched at the same time, is not as popular, and Weber State’s leaders aren’t sure why.

“We’re going to have conversations with the students and the individuals that are directing the program,” said Horn. “We’ve already made some changes to that program curriculum that would make it more [about] political science [and] politics-involved advocacy, as opposed to more of the hardcore mathematics side of it, which I think is what the original vision was. We’ll continue to survey the students as to why they are in it or are not in it and just tune it as we go along.”

Plymouth State’s programs have also seen uneven interest, said Mike Wilus, director of admissions. The college’s applied bachelor’s programs in cybersecurity and small business administration, the latter of which can be paired with a one-year M.B.A. program, have both been especially popular. Many of the students interested in the small business program hope to work in the trades, and while they don’t need a degree, they hope it will give them an edge in the job market. They also may be looking for a traditional on-campus college experience despite pursuing careers that don’t require an undergraduate degree.

Institutions are starting to take steps to promote their new offerings. Plymouth State is leveraging existing partnerships with nearby community colleges, whose graduates can transfer into a three-year program with an associate degree and finish their applied bachelor’s in one more year. Similarly, Johnson & Wales Chancellor Mim L. Runey told Inside Higher Ed that its admissions team has worked to inform local high school counselors about their three-year degree options.

“I do encounter opportunities to meet with superintendents of school districts, parents, talking with people in the media, and we’re doubling down in every avenue that we have to really educate [about], how did we create these degree programs, what do they mean for the students and their families around debt, time to completion and value in the workplace?” she said. “I think we have much more understanding about what a three-year career-focused degree is at the bachelor’s level today than what we had when we first started.”

Although enrollment hasn’t necessarily been as robust as the institutions wanted, officials note positive outcomes. At many institutions, three-year programs also have a four-year equivalent, and students can switch between them; at Johnson & Wales, persistence rates from the first to second year were the same as for four-year students in the same program, and very few students have opted to switch from the shorter to full-length version.

Success at ASU

For public flagships entering the three-year degree game, the story is a little different.

When Arizona State University started a three-year degree program in education this fall, it attracted 300 applicants, said Carole Basile, dean of the Mary Lou Fulton College for Teaching and Learning Innovation.

The option has already become popular among a range of students.

“There’s a kid, just a freshman, who came in; she goes, ‘I just always wanted to be a teacher. I want to make a difference. I want to get out there as soon as I can. So I’m going to go do it in three years,’” Basile said. “Somebody else was a paraprofessional. They came in and they said, ‘You know what? I’ve always wanted to be able to finish my degree. I want to be able to do it as fast as I can. I’ve been working in schools already for six or seven years. This is an opportunity for me to get my degree and my certification in less time [and] less money.’”

The college didn’t set out to create a three-year education program. Basile was already exploring improvements to the curriculum after hearing feedback from students that their lessons could sometimes be redundant. So the college consolidated the program into three years of core curriculum, with students able to use the fourth year to earn a minor or complete a specialization, like special education. When the university reached out to see which programs might work as three-year degrees, Basile said the recently revised education program seemed like a perfect fit.

“This was designed very intentionally over a period of time, and when we got to a point where somebody said, ‘Hey, who wants to do a three-year program?’ we actually were ready to do that and still maintain a very high quality of program,” she said.

But as reduced-credit degrees become more common at better-known institutions, more opponents are also coming out of the woodwork. In July, the American Association of University Professors and the American Federation of Teachers criticized the approval of three-year degrees by the Massachusetts higher education board, arguing that it “threatens academic integrity by substituting for a comprehensive education a stripped-down curriculum that prioritizes speed over essential intellectual development.”

Other critics have questioned whether the three-year degree will truly give students the skills they need to thrive in the workforce. While proponents of three-year degrees say they have worked with employers to ensure they will be willing to hire three-year-degree holders, Christina Clark, president of La Roche University in Pittsburgh, recently wrote in Inside Higher Ed that the “uniquely human skills” employers say they are interested in are better developed in a deep liberal arts environment, rather than an expedited program. Matthew Brophy, an associate professor of philosophy at High Point University, made a similar argument.

Proponents of accelerated degrees push back against the idea that students in three-year programs aren’t learning those skills. Most three-year degrees retain all general education courses—which, in many states, are legally required and are often where students gain important problem-solving and critical thinking skills.

As for the question of quality, most advocates agree that the exact outcomes aren’t yet known. Colleges and accreditors are monitoring the programs to see how their graduates fare.

“We know three-year degrees are taking off. The work now is ensuring they deliver strong outcomes and a positive return on investment for students, so that’s where we’re going to be focused moving forward,” Payne of Strada said.

They remain hopeful that the outcomes are comparable to those of traditional four-year bachelor’s degree holders. Strada, Arnold Ventures and the College-in-3 Exchange recently released a report on quality in shortened degrees based on the findings of a 17-person task force. One of the suggestions was that, if the outcomes do, in fact, match those of a four-year degree, three-year programs should simply be called bachelor’s degrees, contravening common wisdom—and a requirement of some accreditors—to give the programs their own names.

“I think that’s a pretty significant statement that this group of folks from all different [sectors] felt that seat time does not necessarily equal learning, and that there is a real opportunity to evaluate how long a student is enrolled,” Payne said. “And to challenge that 120-credit standard that was set, you know, around the time of the Model T.”