PSU says its new three-year degree is a win for students and employers

Plymouth State University is on track to be one of just two New England universities to offer a three-year bachelor degree for some programs next fall. Even nationwide, that faster and less expensive option is uncommon.

The new “applied” bachelor’s degree could save Plymouth State University students more than $25,000 in one year tuition and room and board. It is also intended to help employers desperate for skilled workers.

“There are clear areas of employment where we are seeing a dearth of applications, and law enforcement is one of them,” said Laura Dykstra, an associate professor of criminology and criminal justice at the university. Police studies is one of the five three-degrees planned for the fall.

“Departments are feeling really challenged to find highly-qualified candidates,” she said. “They are having issues with candidates that are not able to bring the writing skills and communication skills that are needed.”

The university is also finalizing curriculum for applied bachelor’s degrees in business administration, cybersecurity, outdoor adventure leadership, and robotics. Each will require 96 credit hours.

While other universities and colleges in the country have offered faster-track bachelor degrees by awarding credits for advanced high school credits or other prior learning, many have still required 120 credits to graduate.

The other two New England institutions to receive recent approval for three-year degrees from the New England Commission of Higher Education are Johnson and Wales in Rhode Island and Merrimack College in Massachusetts, though the latter still needs state approval, said Lawrence Schall, the commission’s president. New England College in Henniker has expressed interest.

Schall said the shorter degrees are a significant development in terms of making higher education more responsive to the needs of students and the marketplace.

“The schools that have come to us have been very thoughtful about which degree programs are appropriate for this,” Schall said. “They are trying to understand the market in these fields and whether students are going to be able to learn what they need to learn in a shorter period of time with a shorter number of credits.”

Plymouth State University Provost Nathaniel Bowditch said exploring which programs would be good candidates for a shorter degree also made clear which would not.

“If someone wants to go to medical school, with the requirements (for that degree) now, a three-year degree would not work,” he said. “We thoughtfully chose the five we chose. We did not rush in willy-nilly. I think this is a time for us to show how these work and as we work through this, we may find other programs.”

The New England Commission of Higher Education allowed Plymouth State University and the other schools to create their own curriculum but set several requirements.

Institutions must have an assessment plan that measures retention and graduation rates, student employment in their field of study, and students’ attainment of general education and core class material.

The curriculum must include at least 90 credits, include a path for students to obtain a four-year degree in their course of study, and offer a mix of core classes, general education courses, and electives.

Dykstra, who teaches in the criminal justice program, said her team developed the curriculum for police studies after talking with people working in law enforcement. The team also looked at programs in other countries that offer a three-year policing degree.

“We had kept the (existing criminal justice) program very broad to give students the right choices in terms of minors and electives,” Dykstra said. “One of the advantages of this (three-year) program is that you are catering to only one pathway. They may not need a very extensive knowledge of the corrections system but we would want them to have more knowledge of criminal investigations.”

Bowditch said he and others at the school are hearing from peers around the country about its new program.

“This has been on the minds of accrediting bodies for a while,” he said. “Now that we are moving forward, I get phone calls. I get emails. A lot of people are curious to see how our experience is going to go.”