Universities may eventually award bachelor’s degrees in less than four years, one of many proposals currently on the table to lower the cost of college for students, according to an expert in the field.
Jeff Selingo, in a recent interview with PBS, said that “there is nothing magical about four years of college and 120 credits for a bachelor’s degree.” He said there is now a movement toward more competency-based education, where the only question is: what do you know?
“And if you know it, you move on, and in some cases, you finish college in less than four years,” Selingo told PBS’s Ray Suarez.
Selingo said this is just one idea among many currently under consideration in the wake of President Barack Obama’s announcement earlier this year that federal aid could no longer chase rising education costs and that lowering the cost of college needs to be a priority.
Selingo works for The Chronicle of Higher Education and is the author of “College Unbound: The Future of Higher Education and What It Means for Students.”
According to the book, Selingo argues that the nation’s higher education system is broken and that because of the “great credential race” schools can churn out students with “few hard skills into the job market.”
Selingo’s views are of interest to those considering going to college. He’s an advocate for higher education, but argues that different approaches – many of them utilizing technology – need to be used to improve education and lower costs.
In the PBS interview, Selingo said that it now takes 40% of the average American family’s paycheck to send one person to college. In 2001, that number was less than 25%, he said. He said this has led to people questioning the value of higher education, or at least led to them to search for cheaper alternatives than a four-year degree in a traditional college campus setting.
Selingo said this had led to more bargaining power for students at some schools, particularly “middle-tier” schools that had trouble filling all the available seats for the 2013-2014 academic year. That could offer potential students some leverage in trying to get a tuition reduction.
However, he said, this will “probably not” be the case at the top schools because “most of the top schools have 10 times as many applicants, qualified applicants, as they have spots.”
Selingo noted that colleges face financial issues because of the very nature of the operation. Unlike other industries where computers have revolutionized how business is conducted and have in many cases saved costs, Selingo said colleges still must fund a personnel-heavy operation where they still need one professor for every 20 students “just like you did in 1980.”
Studies show that a college degree can be a benefit in a person’s career. And high school graduation rates are increasing nationwide. However, Selingo pointed out that some of that depends on the area of the country.
In the Mid-Atlantic and Northeast, where there are more schools, the school graduation rates are falling, Selingo said. In the West and the South those rates are rising, but there are fewer colleges in those areas.
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