Southern Vermont College

Lamar Alexander’s very recent article in Newsweek Magazine suggests the value of a three-year college degree, accomplished by accelerating some students through the process by increasing their course load during the academic year.  Summers and inter-sessions could be used too, and that would decrease the pressure from added coursework during the traditional academic year.

Senator Alexander’s piece does recognize that his proposal will not work for every student, specifically noting that his approach leaves students less time to “roam intellectually.”   I think there are other, more salient, reasons why a three-year degree program will be problematic for many students. 

Let me explain.

The biggest challenge we face in higher education is not how to graduate the well-prepared, well-heeled, and high achieving students who attend America’s elite institutions.  We may worry that these learners are paying too much for their degree and that they are taking too long to get it.  But, these high achieving students are, for the most part, continuing on to graduation.

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In a recent conversation with another colleague in higher education, she suggested that “workforce development” –as that term is commonly used–is not the goal at her institution. At her college, she stated, they educate leaders. At her college, they foster critical thinking skills, analytic development, problem solving and creativity (in addition to substantive knowledge acquisition).

Since I am president of a college that prides itself in producing graduates who enter the workforce, I found this approach off-putting. It made me think about how some powerful voices in higher ed trivialize what some smaller institutions, like Southern Vermont College, work hard to do — graduate students who become police and corrections officers, healthcare professionals, social and juvenile justice workers, and entrepreneurs and owner/operators of small and medium sized businesses.

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