US: Express lane to a BA

What was a year ago an emerging idea about how to reduce college costs and better serve students has begun to take hold at colleges across the United States, as more institutions introduce three-year bachelor's degrees, writes Jennifer Epstein for Inside Higher Ed.

On Wednesday Stanley Ikenberry, interim president of the University of Illinois, said that the university had begun studying whether it would make sense to offer three-year bachelor degrees and would release a report in six months. In just the past month Arcadia University, Holy Family University, the University of North Carolina at Greensboro and, in partnership, Georgia Perimeter College and Georgia Southwestern State University have all introduced formal three-year programmes that will begin later this year.

Concerns about ever-rising college costs, which have been only compounded by the prolonged recession, and the Bologna Process's success in standardising three-year, competency-based bachelor degrees throughout Europe have helped to amplify the drumbeat that has played in the background for decades. But some experts are critical, arguing that students may miss out on key experiences, and they wonder whether many students will be able to finish their degrees in three years.
Full report on the Inside Higher Ed site