<p>In many countries, non engineering degrees are only 3 years.</p>
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<p>While general educational expectations in K-8 is much higher across the board on average in many foreign countries with 3-year BA/BS degrees, such systems DON’T NECESSARILY PREPARE everyone for college. </p>
<p>Instead, everyone is prepared to the same baseline up to a certain point before students are tracked by teacher/admin selection and/or exam into college-track or various non-college vocational tracks or apprenticeships. In many such societies, college is regarded as the choice for the academically elite 20% or third of students, not for everyone. </p>
<p>While the tracking has become less rigid in recent years, being placed on the non-college track does mean one’s chances of pursuing college education even later in life is greatly hampered unless one’s wealthy enough to be sent by one’s family to study in countries with much more flexible education systems providing second chances for late bloomers…like the US. </p>
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<p>Also keep in mind that in some countries, engineering…especially practical engineering for professional purposes could be taken in a vocational HS/junior college institution rather than in a bona-fide college. </p>
<p>While graduates from the former type institutions have the skills to land lucrative high paying engineering/tech jobs out of the gate, their credentials aren’t regarded as highly by employers and sometimes, certain elite quarters of society at large which could affect promotion and professional/social networking opportunities. </p>
<p>One way some have been able to overcome this issue is to apply to elite/respectable US/UK grad schools to gain an MS or higher degree. As the vocational/junior college curricula may be equivalent/exceed the undergrad engineering curricula at most US colleges, some topflight graduates of such non-college institutions have been able to gain admission to some fine US engineering grad schools for MS at the very least. </p>
<p>An engineering degree in the CSU with 10+ AP classes and strategic course planning is three years at a normal unit load. Already abusing the AP classes to their fullest so that I barely have any general education left and can do all major courses. </p>
<p>Go to a CSU, stay at home, abuse your AP credits (because they take them). That’s how you get your cheaper than a single year at a UC, and faster overall too, right into a lucrative engineering career after local internship work.</p>
<p>–And no to pricey grad schools. It’s not necessary with local schools offering master degrees and they’re just more time that could be used working.</p>
<p>The setup is just very different in many countries with a 3-year bachelors.
To become a computer programmer in Germany or banker in Switzerland, many/most don’t go to university; instead, those are vocational careers learned through apprenticeship.</p>
<p>Currently, most colleges end classes in early May and start up right after (or right before) Labor Day, with several weeks off in December-January. Many freshman and even sophomores are not eligible for summer internships and end up doing low level work (or none at all) during the summer. Summer offerings are often minimal. Including summer classes in the tuition for the year, with some additional cost for housing, for those first two summers could get most kids done in 3 to 3.5 years (the ones that would have finished in 4). Or cut the length of each semester by a week and cut some vacation time.</p>
<p>Summer jobs are very important, especially in some fields, summer after Junior year so year-round is probably not a good option. </p>
<p>Engineering or other science-heavy degrees would be more difficult, but still adding some meaningful summer courses would help. </p>
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<p>At a semester system school, two summer sessions is about equivalent to one regular semester. Presumably, the variable costs (primarily instructional staff) would be similar, but getting more students into the summer sessions would make better use of fixed costs (buildings and equipment that may otherwise be underused during the summer).</p>
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<p>Correct, but then the equivalent of senior year is not all football games, proms and parties. It’s the equivalent of a full load of AP’s. In other words, college level classes during 12th, which easily cuts off a year of college.</p>
<p>Maybe I’m an idiot, so correct me if I’m wrong. But if a university changes to a three-year ba degree, won’t that force costs to go up? If students graduate in three years, there will be less students on campus but the college will have the same expenditures, meaning the college will have to charge its students more to attend. In the end, it seems the “three-year degree” solution would cost as much as four years.</p>
<p>^^they just increaase the thru-put, i.e., they can accept more kids each year.</p>
<p>^^ Oh! of course</p>
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<p>Other schools, like Alabama, also have extensive remedial course offerings:
<a href=“Page Not Found | The University of Alabama”>Page Not Found | The University of Alabama; (005 through 115)
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<p>@ucbalumnus </p>
<p>I mention the UCs and CSUs in particular because half their students are attending with tax-payer provided free tuition, and I suspect that of the half getting free tuition, a majority are taking sub100 classes.</p>
<p>When tax-payers are providing free tuition, then the students should be presenting as “college-ready.”</p>
<p>The state of Alabama doesn’t provide tax-payer provided free tuition…and the sub100 classes offered by Bama are online classes, not classroom classes. </p>
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<p>The state of Alabama does provide a substantial in-state discount, even if it is not 100%. Also, getting a full tuition scholarship does not necessarily imply that a student at Alabama does not need remedial course work.</p>
<p>According to <a href=“http://mybama.ua.edu/cp/render.UserLayoutRootNode.uP?uP_tparam=utf&utf=https://ssb.ua.edu/pls/PROD/bwckschd.p_disp_dyn_sched”>http://mybama.ua.edu/cp/render.UserLayoutRootNode.uP?uP_tparam=utf&utf=https://ssb.ua.edu/pls/PROD/bwckschd.p_disp_dyn_sched</a> , MATH 100 (intermediate algebra) is offered in 14 lecture/lab sections, 1 lecture only section, and 2 on-line sections. The on-line sections appear to be the same class split into two sections for specific types of students (one for DL (distance learning?) students, one for GoArmyEd students). It appears that on-campus Alabama students who need to take MATH 100 have to take one of the lecture/lab or lecture only sections.</p>
<p>Although MATH 100 does not have a sub-100 course number, intermediate algebra is a remedial course in a college context, as it is equivalent to high school algebra 2. A course with a sub-100 course number, MATH 005 (elementary algebra, equivalent to high school algebra 1), is offered in 3 on-campus lab sections.</p>
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<p>Mom2: while I agree with your sentiments – and have posted the same on cc for many years – just a small nit: half of those matriculating to a CSU require remedial coursework, but the % is lower at UC, and much lower at the big three (Cal, UCLA, and UCSD). The overall UC number would be even lower if we ignore Merced. 
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<p>I would agree with the 4 yr degree if high school was more effective at preparing kids for college.</p>
<p>Instead, I think a 3 year program would be a cool way to reward students that take AP and honors causes and maintain a GPA of 3.4 or higher. Plus, if a college did this and also awarded scholarships for attendance, they would only have to offer 3 yrs of scholarships.</p>
<p>On the flip side, what college has any incentive to reduce the cost of college to parents? Colleges are the very cause of high tuition. Tuition isn’t just a price made up out of the blue. Tuition is what colleges charge to pay for professor and administrator salaries, to maintain and construct new buildings, to offer many student opportunities and to police campus and do anything else they want to do plus some extra to sock away for whatever purpose they have in mind. So, really, why would they lower tuition for anyone? They aren’t the help, they are the cause of the problem.</p>
<p>Some degrees should be 3 yrs, some 4 yrs and some 5 yrs. Employers need to stop thinking they need a college grad for every job too. It’s getting ridiculous. Then again, high schools are getting ridiculous and coming close to teaching nothing of value to kids in some areas, just sex, drugs and whatever bad music is around at the time plus no bullying, no smoking, use a condom, don’t be insensitive, you can’t pray here, Heather has two mommies mumbo jumbo that can’t help a student get a job or be productive in the real world where terrorists behead people and we try to figure out why they hate us so much so we can do conflict resolution with them.</p>
<p>In many colleges, if a kid got enough AP/IB/CLEP/CC credits during HS, college can definitely be 3 years long only.</p>
<p>Concerning CA, I know that the UCs are tuition-free to many students, but the CSU’s as well? I thought their fin aid was worse (though they do have cheaper list prices).</p>
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<p>One issue is the quality of AP and honors courses in HS can vary greatly so taking such courses or even passing the AP exams with a 5 is no guarantee one has adequately covered the material in an equivalent college course in sufficient depth. Especially if the course is offered at a respectable/elite college.</p>
<p>However running start classes taken at a community college are regarded as equivalent college courses by universities, which they are. Perhaps not as intense, but still considered equivalent courses.</p>
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<p>Depending on the 4-year college, the community college course may not always be regarded as a full equivalent to fulfill major or even critical core/distribution requirements. Sometimes, credit awarded takes away from free electives and one ends up having to repeat the course at the 4-year college. </p>
<p>Not all state CCs are created equal. My state just started working on making the cc classes rigorous enough to have them qualify to transfer to the state publics and private schools. The top privates still don’t accept the cc credits from our state system. At least it is clear which colleges in our state now accept the credits so it is easier to transfer. We have a strong branch campus system for our flagships which are superior to our cc system. </p>
<p>“The top privates still don’t accept the cc credits from our state system” – many of the top privates don’t accept credits from MOST schools. A family member at Princeton had to look long and hard to find an upper-level summer class at UC-Santa Barbara before they agreed to grant credits. (They refused at least 3 classes she suggested.) They will make exceptions for other elite schools (Ivies) or their international equivalents. </p>
<p>Why?</p>
<p>My guess is either because they’re too arrogant (no one is as good as we are) or too greedy (we want students to pay us, not other schools.) </p>