Katie Castellani
State House News Service

The Board of Higher Education has opened the door for colleges and universities across Massachusetts to offer three-year bachelor’s degrees, a move aimed at boosting access to higher degrees while some have raised concerns it could diminish education quality.

The board voted Tuesday to approve a regulation allowing higher education institutions to submit pilot proposals for degree programs that differ from current criteria, like the 120-credit requirement. The regulation doesn't provide specific criteria for programs, but says a pilot should be “responsive to significant changes in society, demographics, technology, educational research, or expectations regarding post-secondary education.”

The regulation, which has been in the works for a year and a half, comes as universities across the country are increasingly offering three-year and sub-120 credit bachelor’s programs – often shifting them to 90 credit hours. Board chair Chris Gabrieli noted that there are other possible program structures that may be contentious.

”I do expect there to be some controversy under some of these proposals, maybe all of them, because they all represent innovation and sometimes real boundary changing and that could be uncomfortable,” Gabrieli said. He added, "I think our general view on innovation should be to neither assume all innovations are good ideas, nor to prevent campus driven ideas - if they're high quality - from proceeding."

The regulation aims to offer students a faster, more affordable path to a degree. However, some educators have raised concerns over how curriculum cuts and accelerated programs could reduce the quality of students’ education and leave them ill-prepared to enter the workforce.

“We may think that we have reduced their financial burden by taking out 30 credits, but in reality, we will have diminished their learning experience and narrowed their path to success overall,” Aruna Krishnamurthy, an English studies professor at Fitchburg State University, said during the meeting. “With the 90-credit degree, the state is sending a signal to our hardworking families and our first generation students they are not worthy of an education that expands the possibilities of their consciousness.”

Max Page, president of the Massachusetts Teacher’s Association, noted that conversations on K-12 education have focused on deepening student’s learning and the new regulation would limit opportunities to do so at the college level. Also, if the aim is to boost affordability, the board should tailor regulations more closely to that goal, he said.

“Let’s not use the front of affordability to pursue a weakening of this degree,” Page said. 

Vice Chair Harneen Chernow, one of two board members who voted against the regulation, raised concerns that the regulation could create a two-tiered system where students – often from wealthier families – attending more selective and prestigious schools would be more likely to go through standard four-year programs than their counterparts at state or community colleges. 

Harneen said that some colleges like the University of Massachusetts Amherst have indicated that they are not interested in offering accelerated degree programs while others, particularly community colleges, are open to the idea.

In 2024, the New England Commission of Higher Education, an institutional accreditor for most of the private and public colleges in New England, gave Merrimack College in North Andover a green light to pilot a three-year program focused on non-licensure majors, like business, health science, physics and liberal arts degrees.

Last fall, Johnson & Wales University in Rhode Island became the first in the country to launch an in-person, three-year bachelor's degree. Students are only required to complete 90 to 96 credit hours, and take a regular semester load of courses during the academic year. The university is only offering the accelerated degree program in computer science, criminal justice, graphic design and hospitality management.

Interest in faster and more affordable higher degrees extends beyond New England. In 2024, former Indiana Gov. Eric Holcomb signed a law requiring every state college and university to review their bachelor's degree programs to determine if they could be completed in three years by a full-time student.

If or when schools submit applications to pilot three-year degrees, those ideas will be subject to approval of the Board of Higher Education.