MERRIMACK COLLEGE AND SUFFOLK UNIVERSITY secured state approval Friday to experiment with three-year bachelor’s degrees, as education officials embrace new strategies to boost affordability for students.
Students earning a traditional four-year bachelor’s degree must pay for and take 120 credits. The Board of Higher Education approved regulations in February creating a pathway for sub-120 credit “applied” bachelor’s degrees, joining a trend unfolding at colleges across the country.
The board approved Merrimack’s plan to offer 96-credit bachelor’s degrees in business administration, communications, criminal justice and psychology, the Department of Higher Education announced. Suffolk was approved for a 94-credit bachelor’s degree in healthcare administration and innovation.
The pilots will start in the fall 2027 semester.
“Many students need to launch their careers sooner to support themselves and their families, and these pilots explore how we can grow options for being career-ready in a way that reduces costs and time to degree,” Commissioner of Higher Education Noe Ortega said.
Initial pilot program approvals last for up to five years. The board can also extend or shorten the “conditional approval” time period based on an “evaluation of the pilot under the innovation regulations, which will take into account sufficient time and data to assess the impact and success of the pilot,” the Department of Higher Education said.
Merrimack and Suffolk must share annual reports on their pilots, incorporating data around enrollment, finances and progress in meeting student learning outcomes.
”If they prove successful, they offer the potential for immediate benefit for participating students and longer-term impact on our understanding of a potential new pathway choice for students who seek it in the future,” board chair Chris Gabrieli said.
Massachusetts Teachers Association President Max Page late Friday called the reduced credit degrees “sub-par” and “harmful” and said the degrees “threaten to create a two-tiered higher education system in Massachusetts.”
“On behalf of the 117,000 members of the Massachusetts Teachers Association, I condemn the state Board of Higher Education’s rushed vote today, approving watered-down bachelor’s degrees for Merrimack College and Suffolk University,” Page said in a statement. “The board refused to listen to our concerns, including of faculty who presented nearly 100 detailed analyses of the problematic proposals and broader testimonies about how these degrees will hurt students and our campuses. These analyses were augmented by nearly 300 additional testimonies, with only one favoring the three-year degrees, and an online petition with 1,160 signatures.”
