At Lynn University, in Boca Raton, Fla., three-year programs are not an exotic rarity but a popular staple. Nearly 20 percent of the students are enrolled in them, according to the college’s most recent study.
The only majors without three-year options are music and education, says Kevin M. Ross, Lynn’s president, and that’s because of conservatory requirements for the former and state teaching certifications for the latter. Otherwise, 406 out of some 2,200 undergraduates were on the three-year track in 2016, the latest year for which data are available.
The program began less than a decade ago with just 27 students in its pilot phase.
When it was introduced, in 2009, the three-year program required a higher grade-point average to qualify, Ross says. The idea was that only students with higher marks in high school could handle the heavier workload. After some internal studies, however, the GPA requirement was lowered from 3.0 to 2.8.
Colleges are increasingly offering three-year B.A.s and other accelerated programs in response to a growing market of money-conscious go-getters and career changers.
“GPA mattered, but it’s not the only thing,” says Ross. “We didn’t want to have that conversation with someone and say, ‘We can save you a lot of time and money and give you value, but you can’t do that because you don’t have this GPA.’
“It’s like saying someone’s standardized-test score would be the only thing that would predict how well you’ll do.”
Gregg Cox, vice president for academic affairs, says Lynn students in the three-year program tend to have higher grades than required anyway.
The program pleases both students and faculty members — students because they’re getting a more economical education, and professors because they’re getting more-eager students.
“As the program has grown, faculty tell me constantly that these are some of their best students,” Cox says. “At the end of the day, when you’re teaching, one of the most important factors to a student’s success is motivation. If a student is highly motivated, faculty members can work wonders.”
Ross says Lynn continuously tracks how the program does in relation to traditional four-year tracks. The university is particularly interested in learning if fast-track students fare better in postgraduate opportunities.
A recent study that measured the program’s first five years found that 62 percent of students completed it within three years, and 75 percent completed it in four.
Preliminary data from a survey distributed to students now in the three-year program found that 86 percent said the three-year track had influenced their decision to enroll at Lynn. Forty-three percent said they had enrolled for cost savings, 40 percent to complete their degrees faster, and 10 percent for the academic rigor. The rest cited other reasons.
Even if students start the three-year cycle and change their minds, the program will be considered successful, Ross says, because those students will very likely get their degrees within four years. There are also “3 +1" bachelor’s and master’s degrees at Lynn, and “3+3" bachelor’s and law degrees.
‘My Parents Were Very Grateful’
Also popular is Lynn’s three-year degree in partnership with the Watson Institute, in Boulder, Colo. Eric Glustrom, Watson’s chief executive and founder, describes it as a social-entrepreneurship incubator geared to students who eschew the standard higher-education format.
One of those students, Tessa Zimmerman, went on to found Asset Education, a nonprofit group that assists high-school teachers in helping students with anxiety-related disorders. She was the first graduate of the Lynn-Watson accelerated-degree track, in 2016, earning her bachelor’s through Lynn.
Zimmerman says she’s glad she got both sets of experiences. At Watson she could immediately focus on starting her project, while at Lynn, through online courses, she gained skills in grant writing and investment theory that help her in her career.
“I liked the three-year degree because I wanted to run this nonprofit right out of school,” she says. “The cost, too. I would say my parents were very grateful.”
Another student, Michael Hentschel, plans to graduate in May 2019. Right out of high school, he worked in a facility that manufactured nuclear fuel for shipment to reactor sites and learned there what he didn’t want to do with the rest of his life.
As his dissatisfaction grew, he and two friends became interested in nonprofit ideas, and in 2014 traveled to Sri Lanka for a conference on how to use sports to bridge racial and social gaps.
When he returned, he attended a community college back home in Columbia, S.C. He thought he needed a degree to be taken seriously to start a venture, but he wasn’t happy there.
He considered some colleges in the Midwest, he says, but “was really dreading going to a four-year institution. I didn’t feel like they had a whole lot of interest in me being successful. It felt very transactional, as if you get in, go there, pay money, and leave.”
He Googled around and found Watson. While earning credits toward an accelerated degree, he’s been working on his project, Share One Love, a nonprofit group that works with young people in schools and juvenile-detention centers by engaging them in structured sports.
