A new effort saw higher education officials from both Virginia and Ohio examine how taking a year off a four-year degree might work, reports Campus Reform. This new plan would shrink the time required to get a bachelor's degree from four years to three.
With doubt spreading among the younger generations about whether a college degree is worth it, this new initiative aims to be more cost-effective and appeal to students who wish to enter the workforce as quickly as possible.
With interest in these three-year programs growing, critics argue that more policymakers should simply make college more affordable rather than try to undermine the curriculum.
Zachary Marschall is the editor in chief at Campus Reform. For schools constantly laying off staff and not meeting enrollment numbers, he told NTD News that this new model would help them.
“Instead of thinking about college as a four year place that is unaffordable, where you can find yourself, you need to think about it more as a compact, leaner institution that is a launching pad for people's careers and adult life,” Marschall said.
He also went on to say that colleges need to work on trimming the fat, with some of the more unnecessary offices and far-left courses that replaced the traditional curriculum needing to be eliminated.
Marschall also spoke to Newsmax 2 about the topic. He says due to the increase of viable options coming out of high school as well as tests that the Trump administration is running to seeing if college degrees are worth the investment, colleges must act now to survive.
“I think colleges will be forced to innovate because they are now backed into a corner because of their own mismanagement,” Marschall said.
Meanwhile, according to Fox News, the most recent Gallup poll shows that just 38% of adults retain a "great deal" or "quite a lot" of confidence in higher education.
It's no shock that faith in higher education in America continues to slide.
For an example as to why, Dr. Sam Hawgood, chancellor of the University of California San Fransico, was unable to answer Rep. Mary Miller's (R-Illinois) question about whether non-biological women could have babies, reports Fox News. Miller pointed out that the curriculum prefers to use the term pregnant people instead of pregnant women.
Hawgood: “The vast majority of pregnancies are in women, and I have absolutely no problem with using the word pregnant women, I use it myself.”
Miller: “Has a non-biological woman ever had a baby?”
Hawgood: “A transgender person can.”
Miller: “That's not a biological woman. Has a non-biological woman ever had a baby? No, it's ridiculous.”
The poll also asked respondents what drives their lack of confidence in the system: 31% say partisan bias or indoctrination on campuses, 30% say it's due to the high cost of a degree, and 25% say that colleges can't prepare students to succeed in the modern-day job market.
Nicholas Giordano, senior fellow of Campus Reform, told Fox News that colleges’ three big problems are that they traded education for activism, lowered standards which has led kids to not be able to read or write at the college level, and have outrageous tuition costs.
“Some of them are starting to acknowledge it, but it's like stating the obvious, right? It's like the Titanic, saying that the ship is sinking when everyone knows it already and they're scrambling for their lives,” Giordano said.
