The crisis in universities and colleges: 7: shortening time to qualify

Recap

Sorry about the short break in these series of posts but I needed to escape a Canadian winter for a week or so. I am now back (and so is winter).

So far in this series I have argued that institutions need to drive down costs without cutting the quality of learning or research if a public system of mass higher education is to be financially sustainable and maintain public support. I laid out a number of suggestions in the following posts:

• That was the year 2024, that was

• Universities and Colleges in Peril

• Universities and colleges in crisis: 3. The need to focus on costs rather than benefits

• Universities and Colleges in Peril: 4. Reducing costs

• Universities and Colleges in Crisis: 5. Reducing the costs of courses and programs

• The crisis in universities and colleges: 6: too much (useless) research

Now for one more strategy.

Shortening the time to qualify

One way to reduce costs is to move away from time-based qualifications, to qualifications based on learning achievement. The British Open University when it was created stated that anyone was able to take their degree programs, irrespective of their prior qualifications, but only those who met the requisite standards for a degree would be awarded one. There is no set time for this. If you could meet that standard within two years or four, it was meeting the standard that counted, not the length of time studying.

Some institutions, such as Western Governors’, use competency-based learning to allow students to study at their own pace.  Courses are designed, and learner support provided, so that students can choose the intensity of their studying to suit their needs and take exams when they think they are ready.

Bachelor programs in England and Wales and in many other European countries are three years, not four, as in North America. The difference is that North American institutions offer more breadth, with a wider range of program offerings, while European universities are more focused on depth within a particular subject domain.

However, even in Europe, many universities require courses in four different disciplines in the first year, so students can try subjects not studied at school. For instance I entered the University of Sheffield Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences intending to study French and English Literature (my best two subjects in high school), but in my first year at university I also was offered the choice of studying economics and psychology, which I had not taken at school. After my first year, I enrolled in a two-year honour’s track bachelor’s degree in psychology. Having taught in both Canadian and US universities, I find it difficult to argue that North American undergraduates learn more/better in four years than Europeans do in three. It is not the total length of time spent studying that matters, but the intensity and focus. 

This means enabling students to study at their own pace and be assessed when they are ready. It means breaking away from the two or three semester per year and three-credit Carnegie system, to enabling students to take an exam whenever they are ready. This is now possible with learning materials accessible online at any time. Good course design will ensure that students have deadlines and a planned study schedule, but these may vary from student to student based on their needs. Students wanting to combine studying with part-time work for financial reasons will have a different schedule than students who want a degree as quickly as possible, and no other commitments. Mature students returning to college for further qualifications while working full-time will want a different schedule. With mass higher education we have many different students with very different needs. One size does not fit all. We now have the ability to design courses to give that flexibility to students. Also students will work harder if they can see that it will save them money to finish more quickly (and allow those who want to be permanent students to be so, as long as they pay for it). This however means governments rethinking financial aid to enable this flexibility in learning, for instance tying interest-free loans to time to completion of a program.

Again, a three or four year bachelor’s degree does not have to be either/or. Students should have the choice of whether to focus on a three year, more specific degree or a four year, more general degree. However, there would be major economies resulting from those choosing a shorter degree.

These more flexible approaches regarding study time not only enable students to match their studies to their personal requirements, but offer ways in which they can qualify more quickly, and thus reduce costs.

Up next

In the last of this series, I will pull together all my suggestions and look at the two greatest obstacles to reducing costs in higher education.