More Colleges Are Offering 3-Year Bachelor’s Degrees. Here’s What Students Need to Know
Credit: FG Trade Latin / E+ / Getty Images- Three-year bachelor’s degrees are a new experimental degree that cuts the typical four-year, 120-credit bachelor’s degree down to 90 credits.
- Since the concept is so new, there are not many graduates or much data to show wide employer acceptance of these degrees.
- Most colleges offering these degrees provide students a seamless transition into the four-year version or a similar program if they do not want to continue with the three-year version.
Most U.S. bachelor’s degrees require 120 credits, a century-old standard that had little to do with student needs when it was created. Now, a growing number of colleges are experimenting with shorter, three-year programs that could save students time and money and get them into the workforce sooner.
The 120-credit benchmark was set in the early 20th century by what is now TIAA-CREF, which used it to determine faculty workloads for pension purposes, according to Madeleine Green, executive director of the College-in-3 Exchange.
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More than 100 years later, some schools are testing 90-credit bachelor’s degrees, typically completed in three years without heavier semester loads, in a bid to cut costs and better align with workforce demands.
But whether the three-year bachelor’s degree becomes a new norm or remains a niche option may depend on how quickly institutions, states, accreditors, and employers embrace the concept.
New 3-Year Bachelor’s Degree Programs and Pilots
In July, the University of Maine System announced pilots for five fully online 90-credit bachelor’s programs for adult learners who never finished college.
“This is a way for institutions to make a public statement,” Green told BestColleges. “We can innovate, we can be responsive to what we’re hearing about workforce needs, we can be responsive to the cost issues”
Three-year bachelor’s programs can be offered online or in person, usually requiring 90–96 credits instead of 120. Many still include general education courses, while others integrate core skills into major coursework.
Most three-year programs have kept some general education requirements and some electives, while others have rethought the entire curriculum to include those core skills within different classes, Green said.
Her message to new students is that accreditors are building in assessments measuring learning outcomes, student satisfaction, demographics, standard practice, and material mastery.
“More and more institutions are thinking about learning outcomes, competencies — all the things that I think are wonderful fallout from the focus on adult learners to try to move away from the idea that seat time equals credit hours,” Green said.
Want to earn your bachelor’s degree in less than four years? Check out these resources:
Benefits of 3-Year Bachelor’s Degrees
Advocates say the model could shave a full year of tuition and fees, reduce student debt, and boost persistence and retention in the first two years when dropouts are most common. Programs often target applied fields and STEM areas such as business, computer science, health, graphic design, and criminal justice.
Green is particularly hopeful that these redesigned programs will increase student persistence and retention within the first and second years, traditionally when students complete most of their general education requirements. Instead of general education requirements being frontloaded into programs, they are sprinkled throughout three-year degree programs, allowing students to engage early with their majors.
Rethinking popular degrees is also driving institutions to sync with employers, Green said.
For instance, Southeast Missouri State University consulted law enforcement that hires its graduates to get advice on which courses to keep and which to cut for its criminal justice program in development, Green said. The school informally asked local law enforcement, “Does this matter to you?” And they would respond, “Not a bit. If they have a baccalaureate and a major in criminal justice, we’re happy.”
Challenges and Uncertainty
The format is still in its infancy. As of April 2024, Brigham Young University–Idaho and Ensign College were the only schools with active three-year bachelor’s degrees.
Few graduates have entered the job market, employer acceptance remains uncertain, and there’s little research on outcomes or trends, Green said.
Because of this uncertainty, most programs allow students to transfer seamlessly into a traditional four-year track if they choose.
“We don’t have a huge amount of experience,” Green said. “We don’t have a lot of graduates out there.”
States laws also pose obstacles.
Massachusetts, Pennsylvania, and New York, for example, require bachelor’s degree programs to be 120 credits. However, Massachusetts may be changing that soon, Green said.
A Shift Toward Real-World Experience
The rise of three-year degrees reflects a broader shift toward workforce-centered programs for adult learners.
Another emerging model is the degree apprenticeship, which combines paid work with classroom study to help students graduate with minimal debt.
Similar to three-year degrees, they’re very new and met with limited awareness and employer participation.
But advocates see a shift towards these innovations, Green said, pointing to the fact that accreditors have opened the path for colleges to submit courses for three-year degrees.
Accreditors now have a process to review reduced-credit degrees, and they have approved some, Green said. We may see only 60 schools right now, but that’s how you get started.
Where Can You Get a 3-Year Bachelor’s Degree?
- Applied Business Management (online)
- Applied Health (online)
- Communication (online)
- Family and Human Services (online)
- Information Technology (online)
- Professional Studies (online)
- Software Development (online)
These colleges are launching 3-year bachelor’s degree programs in the 2025-26 academic year