Faculty Unions Slam 3-Year Degrees

Merrimack College and Suffolk University will be the first institutions in Massachusetts to offer three-year bachelor’s degrees after winning approval from the state’s Board of Higher Education on Friday. But not everyone is celebrating.

The American Association of University Professors and American Federation of Teachers slammed the state’s decision and three-year bachelor’s degrees in general in a scathing statement issued Monday, wading into the debate over accelerated degrees.

The approval of these degrees “threatens academic integrity by substituting for a comprehensive education a stripped-down curriculum that prioritizes speed over essential intellectual development,” AAUP President Todd Wolfson and AFT President Randi Weingarten wrote. “This move may initially create the illusion of reducing costs, but it ignores the root causes of skyrocketing higher education tuition.”

They argued college affordability hinges on expanding federal and state financial assistance programs, such as Pell Grants and TRIO, “not asking students to accept less education for the same credential.”

“We should reduce the cost of earning a bachelor’s degree, not cut corners and devalue what a bachelor’s degree means,” the statement concluded.

In contrast, state leaders are upholding the new programs—shortened versions of Merrimack’s bachelor’s degrees in business administration, communications, criminal justice and psychology and an applied bachelor’s degree in health-care administration and innovation at Suffolk—as a triumph.

“The future of our economy and workforce require exploring affordable new pathways to degrees and credentials,” Lieutenant Governor Kim Driscoll said in a news release. “The Board of Higher Education has opened the door to innovation while maintaining program quality and consumer protections, which allows us to see the impact of new approaches here in Massachusetts.”

The unions’ objections come as a growing number of institutions experiment with abbreviated degrees. They have attracted supporters who believe they’re a quicker, more affordable route to bachelor’s degrees and detractors who worry for program quality.

The first three-year degrees, online programs at Brigham Young University–Idaho and Ensign College in Utah, got approval just two years ago. Now almost 90 colleges across the country are offering, or working toward offering, shortened degrees, according to Madeleine Green, executive director of the College-in-3 Exchange, an organization that promotes three-year degrees. Accreditors have swiftly gotten on board. The Higher Learning Commission, for example, started approving such programs in March 2025 and has so far approved about 60 degrees from 49 institutions.

Green believes the unions’ opposition represents “old-style thinking” that “time equals learning.” She said the “more-is-better argument” is “familiar pushback.”

“Yet we all know that seat time is not directly correlated with the amount of learning,” she said, “and proponents of three-year degrees really believe this is about redesign.”

That redesign starts with learning outcomes, she said. “It’s looking at where is there overlap in courses or learning outcomes in the major … I see what they’re worried about, but if you look closely at the three-year degree, it just doesn’t hold up.”

Kenneth M. Mash, president of the Association of Pennsylvania State College and University Faculties, an AFT affiliate, said the unions wanted to express their reservations about three-year degree programs as they see “momentum building.” The new programs in Massachusetts are just the latest example of them “popping up” nationwide, he said.

“We don’t want it to get out of control,” Mash said. “We don’t want the tidal wave coming without saying, ‘Hey, wait, have we thought about all the ramifications? Have we thought about what we’re doing to our students?’”

He worries graduates will emerge from shorter programs with less education and murkier job prospects when the labor market demands a growing number of skills from them and will require them to compete against peers with more schooling.

“This is an uncommonly bad idea,” Mash said, “because at a time when there are calls for critical thinking, calls for more knowledge about civics … what we’re doing is reducing the amount of time that students have to get that in.”

He added, “They need tools to be able to survive in a world where they’re going to be changing jobs, where AI is coming in. Are they going to have those tools that are necessary?”

Green acknowledged that it’s too “early in the game” to show concrete data on student learning and job outcomes in three-year bachelor’s programs.

“The graduates aren’t out there yet for us to be able to say, ‘Well, here’s what we know,’” she said, but “that’s true of any innovation until you have the time to test it.”

She also emphasized that institutions are introducing one or two of these programs at a time, not wholesale getting rid of their four-year degree programs.

“This is a pathway at the moment, an alternate pathway for students,” she said. “I wouldn’t say the sky is falling on academic quality.”