The blueprint for an American bachelor’s degree has remained essentially unchanged for more than a century. Ironically, one of its defining features – the college credit hour – wasn’t originally designed to measure learning at all.
It grew out of Andrew Carnegie’s effort to determine what colleges qualified for faculty pension programs. Formalized in the early 20th century by the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, the credit hour began as a time-tracking measure rather than a measure of learning.
Over time, that administrative yardstick became the foundation of the four-year, 120-credit bachelor’s degree. Schools built their curricula around it, employers came to expect it and students accepted it as the price of earning a degree.
Now, Tennessee is asking a question that until recently would have sounded unthinkable: Does a bachelor’s degree always need 120 credit hours?
University of Tennessee System officials say the answer, at least for some students and some careers, might be no.
This summer, the UT board of trustees approved a framework allowing campuses to develop bachelor’s degree programs requiring fewer than the traditional 120 credit hours. Weeks later, the Tennessee Higher Education Commission approved a statewide policy establishing how those new degrees can be authorized.
If individual programs clear additional reviews by university faculty, trustees, accreditors and state regulators, the first could begin enrolling students as early as 2027.
The proposal isn’t meant to replace the traditional four-year college experience, which university leaders say will remain the standard for many students. Instead, they envision another pathway for people poorly served by the existing model, including working adults and students seeking faster entry into high-demand careers.
Supporters say the approach could reduce college costs, shorten the time required to earn a degree and help employers fill critical workforce shortages. Skeptics counter that compressing a bachelor’s degree raises difficult questions about academic rigor, employer acceptance and whether a credential that has defined higher education for generations can be redesigned without losing its value.
The University of Tennessee is among the first to put these questions to the test.
Rethinking the bachelor’s degree
For UT System President Randy Boyd, the idea began with a simple question: Why does higher education still package learning in 120-credit-hour increments?
A longtime entrepreneur before becoming UT president in 2018, Boyd says he’s spent years questioning whether universities have become too tied to a model created for a different era.
Colleges, he argues, can teach almost any subject imaginable, yet they typically offer only a handful of credentials – bachelor’s, master’s and doctoral degrees – with little flexibility in between.
“You can learn anything in the world at our universities, but you have to consume it in 120-credit-hour units,” he says.
That thinking, Boyd says, eventually evolved into one of the UT System’s strategic goals: creating new units of measure for higher education. Reduced-credit bachelor’s degrees are the first major step toward that vision.
The framework approved by the UT board of trustees allows campuses to develop bachelor’s degree programs requiring fewer than 120 credit hours while still meeting academic standards set by the university, THEC and the Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges.
Boyd says the programs would be designed to address specific workforce needs rather than shorten existing majors.
“We’re not going to create 90-credit-hour degree programs just to do it,” he says. “We’re going to focus on the top priorities in the workforce.”
Boyd says early possibilities include criminal justice, financial management, health services, construction science, hospitality, agriculture and human resources. The final mix will depend on faculty expertise, academic requirements and employer demand.
Why higher education is changing
University leaders say the push to rethink bachelor’s degrees is being driven by a rapidly changing student population and labor market.
They argue the traditional four-year bachelor’s degree was designed for an era when most students enrolled soon after high school, attended full time, lived on or near campus and entered the workforce after graduation.
That’s no longer the reality for many Americans.
Many students today are older, work while enrolled, support families or return to finish degrees they began years earlier. Nearly one in four undergraduates is age 25 or older, the National Center for Education Statistics reports. Nearly half of part-time undergraduates work full time while enrolled, and about 18% are raising dependent children.
“We need to meet students where they can thrive the most,” says Hironao Okahana, managing researcher and chief of planning and impact at the American Council on Education.
For some students, Okahana says, the traditional residential experience will remain the best option. For others – especially those balancing work and family responsibilities – a shorter, career-focused degree may prove to be a better fit.
At the same time, employers across Tennessee continue to report shortages in fields ranging from healthcare and construction to business operations and education support. A recent Associated General Contractors of America survey found that 88% of Tennessee construction firms are having difficulty hiring hourly craft workers, underscoring the state’s broader workforce shortage.
University leaders say higher education must adapt to those realities. But meeting workforce demand is only part of the equation. Universities also face growing pressure to make bachelor’s degrees less expensive and quicker to complete.
Supporters argue Tennessee’s model could make earning a bachelor’s degree more affordable. Completing a four-year bachelor’s degree costs an average of about $108,000 to $234,000, depending on the type of institution, the Education Data Initiative reports.
Beyond reducing tuition, completing a degree in three years instead of four could also lower spending on housing, books, fees and other living expenses while allowing graduates to enter the workforce sooner, borrow less and begin earning a full-time salary earlier.
The challenge, Okahana says, is expanding degree options for students without lowering academic standards.
That’s also a guiding principle for Tennessee’s proposal. Steven Gentile, executive director of THEC, says one of the organization’s central goals is to make higher education more efficient and effective without sacrificing academic quality.
What changes
The first assumption many people make about a three-year bachelor’s degree is that something important must be disappearing.
University and state officials insist that isn’t how they’re approaching the redesign.
“The goal isn’t to look at existing programs and trim,” Boyd says. “It’s about building from the ground up.”
Julie Roberts, who oversees academic program approval for THEC, says no focused bachelor’s degree can be created simply by deleting courses. Instead, faculty would begin by asking what knowledge and skills students need to succeed in a particular profession, then design a curriculum around those competencies.
They would then design a curriculum that delivers those competencies while preserving the broader educational foundation expected of a university graduate.
That means general education courses exposing students to writing, communication, mathematics, critical thinking and other core disciplines are expected to remain largely intact, says Bernie Savaries, the UT System’s vice president for academic affairs, research and student success.
“Our north star is ensuring that our students have whatever that specialty aspect is for this workforce need, but also depth and breadth,” Savaries says. “The general education curriculum is valuable. These give our students durable skills around communication, thinking and creativity.”
Roberts says early models for reduced-hour bachelor’s degrees emerging nationwide have generally reached the same conclusion. Rather than stripping away core coursework, programs are more likely to reduce the number of elective credits or combine learning outcomes into more efficient courses.
“We’re trying to encourage programs that can stay true to the nature of the degree, maybe with fewer electives or by combining learning outcomes in a way that’s more creative,” Roberts says.
Those discussions, Gentile says, led THEC to create a formal pathway for the new degrees. On July 23, the commission adopted a statewide policy establishing how bachelor’s degree programs requiring as few as 90 credit hours can be reviewed and approved.
Each proposal will undergo multiple levels of review before students can enroll. Faculty members must approve the curriculum, followed by campus leadership and the UT board of trustees. Programs then face scrutiny from THEC and the university’s regional accreditor.
THEC’s policy also requires institutions to demonstrate that employers helped shape the curriculum, explain how graduates will be prepared for employment or graduate study and, where applicable, show that students will remain eligible for professional licensure.
Boyd says not every major will be a viable candidate. Programs governed by strict accreditation or licensing requirements – architecture, for example – may not be able to significantly reduce their credit hours. Fields built around clearly defined workforce competencies, however, could offer more flexibility.
Who benefits
If the phrase “three-year bachelor’s degree” conjures images of ambitious high school graduates racing through college, university officials say they’re targeting a different audience.
Instead, they are aiming to serve students often overlooked by the traditional higher education model: working adults seeking promotions, parents balancing jobs and family responsibilities, military veterans and Tennesseans who accumulated college credits but never earned a degree.
About one million Tennesseans have earned some college credit but never completed a degree or other postsecondary credential, THEC reports. Many are already balancing careers and family obligations, making a traditional four-year academic pathway difficult to fit into their lives.
One of the university’s priorities, Savaries says, is creating pathways that allow those students to return without starting over.
UT Southern in Pulaski is among the first campuses exploring that vision.
One of the first programs expected to seek approval is a reduced-credit bachelor’s degree in criminal justice aimed at professionals already working in corrections and law enforcement. Many already have years of practical experience but need a bachelor’s degree to qualify for promotions or higher pay.
Boyd says a focused, workforce-oriented program could make finishing college practical for people who otherwise may never return.
“We’re trying to find new markets that may have been unaddressed,” he says.
Robert Kelchen, a UT Knoxville professor who studies higher education policy, says reduced-credit bachelor’s degrees appear best suited for students pursuing technical or applied careers, particularly those who already bring work or life experience to the classroom.
He’s more cautious, however, about students who know they plan to attend graduate school or who want the broader exploration traditionally associated with four years on a college campus.
“I don’t think anyone is suggesting we’re going to have three-year degrees for everyone,” Kelchen says. “But if this helps a 30-year-old with two kids earn a degree and qualify for a promotion in a more reasonable time frame, I think there are real opportunities.”
The questions that remain
For all the optimism surrounding reduced-credit bachelor’s degrees, nearly everyone involved in developing them agrees on one thing: No one knows how they’ll be received.
“There’s no research on it because it hasn’t been done before,” Kelchen says.
A handful of colleges and university systems are pursuing similar programs, but most remain in the planning or early implementation stages, leaving policymakers with few outcomes to evaluate.
That uncertainty leaves two fundamental questions: Will graduates be as well prepared for their careers as students completing traditional bachelor’s degrees? And will employers and graduate schools view the credentials as equivalent?
“The biggest risk is whether students are able to learn what they need to learn,” Kelchen says. “You don’t want students graduating without being adequately prepared.”
Roberts again points to the safeguards built into THEC’s approval process to reduce that risk, including requirements that institutions preserve pathways to graduate school, collaborate with employers in developing the credential, address transfer opportunities and ensure reduced-credit programs continue to meet licensure requirements when applicable.
“The last thing we want is for a student to do something new and innovative and then have no value at the end of it,” Roberts says.
Even so, state officials acknowledge that some questions can only be answered after students begin graduating.
Gentile says graduate schools outside Tennessee may initially hesitate to admit applicants holding the new credentials until they better understand what the degrees represent.
“There will probably be some institutions across the country that will probably be a bit more reticent at first,” he says. “But that will come with time.”
Kelchen says similar questions may arise in the job market.
Some employers, Kelchen says, may care primarily whether graduates possess the skills needed for a position. Others may require only that applicants hold a bachelor’s degree, regardless of how many credits it required. Still, no one yet knows whether employers will distinguish between a traditional degree and a focused bachelor’s degree or view them as equally valuable.
Okahana says institutions should approach the programs carefully, measure student success and workforce outcomes, and remain transparent about both the opportunities and the uncertainties.
Success, he says, should ultimately be measured by outcomes rather than credits totals.
“It will be whether graduates are successful in the workforce and in graduate school,” Okahana says. “That’s what will determine whether this model gains wider acceptance.”
A national test case
Okahana says colleges and universities nationwide are confronting many of the same pressures facing Tennessee: rising costs, declining enrollment in some areas, persistent workforce shortages and growing numbers of adults who need college credentials but can’t easily fit a traditional degree into their lives.
Those challenges are fueling a growing national effort to rethink bachelor’s degrees. Nearly 60 institutions nationwide are developing or implementing bachelor’s degree programs requiring 90 to 96 credit hours, while accreditors and higher education systems in states including Indiana, Utah, Maine and Massachusetts are exploring or approving similar models.
Okahana says the conversation reflects a broader shift in how colleges think about serving students.
For generations, universities largely expected students to adapt to higher education. Increasingly, he says, institutions are asking how higher education should adapt to students.
“The students have changed,” Okahana says. “The workforce has changed. Society has changed.”
Colleges, he argues, have an opportunity – and perhaps an obligation – to rethink how learning is organized while preserving the quality and integrity of a bachelor’s degree.
Gentile believes Tennessee is well positioned to test that idea because of the state’s collaboration among universities, employers and policymakers.
“If the early programs succeed, others can follow,” he says. “If they don’t, the state can adjust before expanding the model.”
Future of undergraduate degrees
More than a century after an administrative measure became an academic standard, Tennessee is testing how permanent that standard really is.
The answer will emerge only after students begin enrolling, graduating and entering the workforce. It will come not from policy debates, but from the education students receive and the opportunities their degrees create.
The first focused bachelor’s degrees could begin enrolling students as early as 2027. Their broader impact, however, could take years to measure.
Whether the 120-credit-hour bachelor’s degree proves to be a timeless academic standard or a tradition capable of evolving is a question Tennessee is now helping answer.