The Three Year Degree Plan
One weird trick to cut the cost of college by a third
The Background
The college and university system is destroying a generation. The cost of a degree is high — and getting higher every year — and the value of a degree is dropping as more people attend college. This cost spiral was kicked off by student loans. Whatever is subsidized with dumb money debt inflates in number and price — whether it be tract homes in Arizona or marginal college degrees. Imagine if you had to lend money to college students — you would lend it to people who seemed likely to get a degree and whose degree would lead to a paying job. And you would lend money to people who went to low-cost schools. This is a simple economic decision — the students who take smaller loans, finish rapidly and find good paying jobs are going to pay you back; the students who have expensive degrees that too long to finish and still can’t find jobs won’t pay you back. You would much rather lend 30,000 to two engineering or computer science majors at State U than 60,000 to one humanities major as Fancy Private U. The latter is more likely to go bankrupt and not pay you back.
The current system is the opposite of this rational system. The federal government backs the loans and bankruptcy doesn’t apply. Nobody is incentivized to care about school price or majors. And this includes colleges themselves — they get their money upfront. So their economic interest is served by charging as much as they can get away with. As for the federal government, student loan debt was an easy way to inflate the economy after the financial collapse. And students in debt are on a leash — they have to work. They are forced into the debt-based economic system from graduation day — they have no time to explore their interests, see the world, or volunteer.
Note: In the education field and state legislatures there is plenty of concern and discussion about college prices — educators and states leaders sincerely care about the students and tuition prices. Many of them are also parents and former students themselves and know the issue first hand. The challenge is that the economic system, especially at the federal level, is misaligned with this concern.
And this system has led to another (perhaps) unintended consequence. The more young people who go to college the less value it has. It is supply and demand. The supply of college degreed young people has risen faster than demand, so the value of a degree to the market has cooled. There are majors where demand is still high, like computer science, but majors in many areas are now a dime a dozen. This has meant that students need additional degrees to command higher wages — and more degrees mean even more debt.
The student loan debt has now cruised past one trillion dollars, and there is no solution in sight. One option is a debt jubilee, essentially tearing up the debt, but that doesn’t seem politically palatable. It also doesn’t solve the problem going forward. Another option is getting rid of student loans — this would drive the cost of education down and value up — but this one isn’t a hit either in part because it closes the door to college degrees for many low SES individuals.
The Solution
I am proposing a simple solution that will significantly minimize the problem for upcoming students. It will also increase access to colleges and universities by allowing these institutions to increase the size of each new student cohort by a third. This solution has few downsides as far as I can tell except for dropping some prerequisites that have a narrow support base.
The solution is designing a BS or BA degree as a three year degree. That’s it. Each student goes to college for three years instead of the current four. The benefit is that tuition drops by 25% plus that fourth year can be replaced by working for a paycheck. So, in year 4, instead of paying 60k, a graduate makes 40k. That is a $100,000 upside for the student. With this in mind, my three year plan cuts the cost of college by a ballpark 33%.
What do universities do with the resources that they would have spent on fourth year seniors? They can increase each entering freshman class by a third. This is magic — more students can attend high demand colleges for much less money.
The Downsides
What are the downsides to this plan? I can’t think of many. There are three ways colleges could handle the loss of a year: they could decrease required classes for a major, decrease electives, or decrease university required courses. I would make the first choice: Cut required courses and replace them with a few streamlined overview courses. Get rid of some foreign language, math, random social sciences (e.g., Intro Psych, Sociology or Anthropology), English and other course requirements (e.g., Government, PE, or multicultural requirements). Done. Students will just have to learn them in high school — which many of them do anyway — or they just won’t get the exposure to them. The second option would be getting rid of student electives (i.e., courses that students want to take) and having a more regimented schedule for all students. That makes sense as well, and it is a pedagogical decision colleges and universities could make. The third option would be dialing back on major courses and making undergraduate degrees broader rather than more specialized. This might make sense at some schools.
Here are the people I think would be harmed the most from this plan: First, a three year degree doesn’t leave much time for personal exploration, so students with no idea about their major would need to get on it. Also, students who will get weeded out of STEM majors by tough courses like organic chemistry will need to get weeded out quickly. This will take some thoughtful advising and scheduling.
Second, faculty who teach in majors or fields that aren’t popular — those that exist because students are forced to take them — will face some cuts. I’m sympathetic, but universities shouldn’t be a jobs programs for people in dying fields.
Third, this plan would likely harm numbers of students majoring in “found” majors. These are majors that are interesting to students but that students aren’t exposed to before taking introductory courses in the area. They typically don’t arrive at college or university with these majors in mind. A couple of examples of this in the social sciences are sociology and anthropology. These are fascinating fields, but most students don’t know this. So, if introductory courses in these areas were limited there will be fewer majors. One solution to this would be more intensive advising or high schools replacing “social studies” with “social science.”
Fourth, mediocre schools that exist to get the spillover from more popular universities would take a hit because there would be significantly more room in the more popular schools. Think of universities as a champagne glass fountain. The top schools — the Ivies, Stanford, MIT — fill up and applicants drop to the next tier — public flagship schools, selective liberal arts colleges. When these fill up applicants looks at more regional schools — those with directions in their name or less selective liberal arts — and so on. If each champagne glass gets 33% larger, there will be less liquid flowing down to the next tier. At the bottom, some of the glasses will need to be removed or combined. This will be challenging for some schools — and the trend of college mergers and closures would likely accelerate. Or, maybe with lowered costs and time, we could get more young people going to college.
Fifth and finally, there is the risk that schools will jack up tuition because they can. If a parent is expecting to spend 200k for a four year school and a year is cut, the cost should drop to 150k. But schools might still think that they can get away with 175k. This is still a saving, but less than expected.
The Upsides
When the debt crisis hit, I thought the three year degree plan was an easy solution to help millions of students. I still think it is an easy solution. I see no real downsides, and there are three huge upsides. The first, and obvious, is the cost — this is a huge dent in academic costs, especially when you add the additional year of earnings. The second, less obvious but important, is access. Demand for university education is growing, but student space in the high demand educational institutions are not. At the University of Georgia where I am a professor (and whose opinion this article does not reflect), there is a large and growing demand from the citizens of Georgia for student spots. This plan would add about 2,500 slots for freshmen. That means 2,500 happy students and families, and 2,500 more Georgia Dawgs entering the workforce or graduate/professional training each year. Yes, with more students average quality will drop a little bit, but there are so many highly talented students on the bubble for admissions that it won’t drop much. The third, and more speculative, upside is the focus a three year degree would demand. Students won’t be able to contemplate four different majors (like I did, going from business to philosophy to economics to psychology). I believe — and I am speculating — that the shorter time-frame will increase student focus and motivation. Admittedly, though, this transition will take greater advising up front, but it might be as simple as having admitted students watch videos of classroom instruction in different areas before matriculating.
What baffles me is why this transition to three year degrees hasn’t happened already. I don’t get it — it is the easiest solution to a generational-level problem. I think some of the issue is inertia. Universities hate change; we still dress up in medieval robes like a Harry Potter movie and “hood” our Ph.D. students. Another is who the debt crisis effects. As a faculty member, I don’t directly experience the debt my students face (Note: I do as a parent of two daughters who I hope will attend college). I also have some benefits from a four year degree. In my lab, for example, fourth year seniors are a little more seasoned than third year juniors. As a psychology professor, I am shielded from student demand problems. Psychology is a very popular major and if I teach a course on personality psychology, social psychology, close relationships, the self, or narcissism — all the courses I can teach — there will be student demand. But if I were a mediocre professor in a dying field with no natural student demand this new system could hurt. Without forcing students to take my course via requirements, the seats would be empty.
The Hidden Politics
In most cases where society does stupid things that cause great harm, there is someone behind the scenes making a whole lot of money. The easiest way to figure these situations out is to ask cui bono, who benefits? The current four year degree is a case where I can’t answer this question — the debt would be the same in aggregate, although spread across more students thus curtailing risk, so the lenders benefit. The university administrators would look like heroes for making smart changes that benefit students and the state — plus their alumni networks would expand. The accreditation bodies could do exactly what they were doing before. Wall Street, state and federal politicians, and the military-industrial complex all benefit, or at least aren’t harmed. The service academies could increase in size, for example, which would benefit the armed services. Some schools that are low in demand will become even lower, and there will be consolidation in the higher education industry, but the individuals harmed by this are low level and lacking political power — and, frankly, this is an industry that needs some consolidation. Politically, student debt probably helps the Democrats because they seem to promise free college education every election cycle, but minimizing the problem would also score them some political points as well. And they can still run on the platform of a free three year degree. I think any politician who supported this plan would do well.
The Bottom Line
Young people are getting destroyed by student loan debt. The whole country is affected as this debt ripples through the economy as a massive wave of deflation — family formation slows down, home ownership drops, nobody buys minivans. Young people don’t become adults because they are chained to debt. The three year degree plan seems like an easy fix to a massive problem.
