Contents

The Jossey-Bass
Higher and Adult Education Series

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Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Bradley, Martin J.
Saving higher education: the integrated, competency-based three-year bachelor’s degree program / Martin J. Bradley, Robert H. Seidman, Steven R. Painchaud.
p. cm.
Includes bibliographical references and index.
ISBN 978-0-470-88819-3 (cloth); ISBN 978-1-118-10646-4 (ebk.);
ISBN 978-1-118-10647-1 (ebk.); ISBN 978-1-118-10648-8 (ebk.)
1. Education, Higher–United States. 2. Educational change–United States. I. Seidman, Robert H. II. Painchaud, Steven R. III. Title.
LA227.4.B72 2012
378.73–dc23 2011025955

FIRST EDITION

We dedicate this book to our spouses—Michelle D. Bradley, Robin Seidman, and Maria Manus Painchaud—and our children Matthew, Michael, and Justin Bradley and Elena and Mark Painchaud. Their love and support means everything to us.

List of Tables and Figures

Institutional Comparisons and Implications of Three-Year-Degree Models

Hierarchical Relationships

Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) Essential Learning Outcomes and Southern New Hampshire University (SNHU) School of Business Competencies

Data Collection and Analysis Pyramid

Sample Data-Collection Course Form—Course Topics/Learning Outcomes by Program-Level Competencies

Sample Tabulation of Topics/Learning Outcomes by Course and Program Competencies

Sample Meta-analysis of Course Topics/Learning Outcomes by Program Competencies and Distribution

Year-One Modules, Themes, and Integrating Experiences

Program Competency Reinforcement Plan, Business Administration Example

Alignment and Assessment Relationships for Academic Plans

Comparison of ETS Test Performance (Score)

Comparison of ETS Test Performance (Percentile)

Preface

American higher education is at the breaking point. It is at a critical crossroads, with the very survival of many institutions at stake. The current price structure has become unsustainable for many students and their families, and costs have become problematic for a great many higher educational institutions as well. Additionally, employers often express concerns that many college graduates are not sufficiently prepared to enter the workforce and succeed in today's knowledge economy. There is fierce competition between traditional nonprofit and for-profit educational institutions to attract students seeking to earn a college degree without having to sink deeply into debt. Data reported by Knapp, Kelly-Reid, and Ginder in Postsecondary Institutions and Price of Attendance in the United States (2010) show that in 2008–2009, for-profit institutions enrolled almost 11 percent of the higher education U.S. student population, a 20 percent increase from the previous academic year. Between 2004–2005 and 2008–2009, the increase was 60 percent.

It is becoming increasingly clear that without fundamental changes, a college education will soon be out of reach for many more of our citizens. This could harm our nation's ability to compete effectively in a global marketplace, slow the advancement of knowledge, and diminish the quality of life for many individuals and families as well as society as a whole.

It has long been recognized that higher education is an important vehicle for achieving economic success and improved social prosperity in the United States. Carnevale's (2008) analyses show that bachelor's degree attainment grew significantly when colleges and universities enjoyed long periods of growth in the second half of the twentieth century. Other studies argue convincingly that higher education remains one of the few industries in which consumer demand and competition has had only a marginal effect on price and cost controls (Zemsky, Wegner, & Massy, 2005; Archibald & Feldman, 2010). Today's students and their families are being asked to make enormous financial sacrifices in the pursuit of higher education in order to prepare for life and work in the twenty-first century. Something is very wrong when a college education costs as much as many typical middle-class families earn annually. It is clear that controlling tuition and institutional costs while at the same time delivering high-quality educational experiences that meet individual and societal needs is key to the continued success of postsecondary education in the United States. The stakes are incredibly high.

With this book, we want to change the nature of the conversation about three-year bachelor's degrees, which in turn may alter the future cost-price trajectory of higher education. Several three-year-degree models exist, but only one, the Integrated Three-Year Model, can save students and their families 25 percent of the price they pay for higher education while at the same time saving institutions almost that much in delivery costs. Most importantly, the savings realized by this model can be accomplished without diminishing the quality of the educational experience for the students.

We adopt the distinction between the cost and price of education that Archibald and Feldman make in their book Why Does College Cost So Much? (2010). Price refers to what the students pay for tuition, fees, and room and board. Cost refers to the value of resources used by the institution to provide the education.

This book describes a highly integrated, competency-based three-year model that challenges the long-standing notion that seat time is inextricably linked to educational attainment. Instead, the new model relies on demonstrated competency attainment supported by a highly integrated curriculum structure to ensure a quality education. Although some of the model's components are not new, what is novel is the way in which they are embedded in a curriculum structure that reduces the traditional eight college semesters to six while maintaining 120 earned credits.

The Integrated Model fundamentally changes the way that higher education institutions can successfully deliver undergraduate education. We can say this unequivocally because we have been affiliated with just such a program since 1997, when Southern New Hampshire University admitted its first three-year-degree class. Since then, students in this integrated program have been earning a full 120 credits in six semesters—without weekend, night, summer, or intersession classes. Research results show that these students achieve at levels at least as high as their nationally normed four-year counterparts on an ETS Major Field Test.

Saving Higher Education: The Integrated, Competency-Based Three-Year Bachelor's Degree Program is not meant to be a case study, although the ideas put forward have been tested over many years. Instead, this book describes a general three-year integrated model in such a way that interested readers can decide for themselves what it would take to transform their own existing four-year undergraduate programs. The new model applies to a wide variety of institutions and programs and will appeal to those who have an abiding interest in the future of higher education in general and of their own institutions in particular. This group includes college and university presidents, chief financial officers, and enrollment executives who are concerned about the escalating price of a college degree and their institution's ability to meet its enrollment and retention targets given their revenue and cost structure. The group also includes provosts, chief academic officers, deans, department chairs, and faculty from a variety of disciplines who want to develop innovative, high-quality academic programs that better prepare students for life and work in the twenty-first century, meet the calls from internal and external stakeholders to demonstrate student outcomes, and reduce time to graduation. Government officials and politicians at all levels will be interested in this model because of its cost savings and its emphasis on student learning outcomes.

The title of this book might at first blush appear to be a bit presumptuous, to say the least. You will see in the chapters that follow that no one claims that the Integrated Three-Year Model alone is a silver bullet that can save the massive enterprise that is U.S. higher education. Institutions will continue to teeter on the edge of financial insolvency and some, perhaps many, will fall. What the book seeks to demonstrate is a way to realize savings in the price students pay and the cost to institutions; together these savings could bring the higher education price-cost trajectory under control. It is at this price-cost nexus that institutions large and small, lacking sufficient endowments, can avoid pricing themselves out of reach and can potentially attract and keep students who will be able to afford the quality of higher education that they want, need, and deserve.

A three-year bachelor's degree may not be for everyone. Certainly, some students enter college with little or no idea of what they want to study and wait until the end of their first or second year to declare a major. A four-year program is better suited for them. But there is no reason why three-year programs can't coexist with four-year programs and help to deliver institutional cost savings and student price reductions. This book includes an example of one such program, and as the reader will see, it has, among other things, significantly increased student retention for more than a decade.

Outline of Contents

Three-year degrees are not new in American higher education, and Chapter 1 places the three-year-degree movement into a historical perspective. The chapter discusses the three Cs that are the central forces contributing to renewed interest in three-year degrees: cost, competition, and curriculum innovation. Three contemporary three-year-degree models are described: Accelerated, Prior Learning, and Integrated Competency-Based. The reader is challenged to think differently about higher education, and three-year degrees are placed in a global context, which includes discussion of the Bologna agreement. The chapter also includes a comparison table of the seven main attributes of the three three-year models. Chapter discusses the comparisons in detail.

Chapter 2 discusses two of the three underlying core elements of the Integrated Three-Year Model: (1) the elimination of seat time as a primary measure of student learning and delivery of education and (2) a competency-based curriculum that focuses on measurable learning outcomes at the school, program, and course levels.

Chapter 3 focuses on the third core element: (3) educational experiences that align with program-level competencies. A multipart method for accomplishing the redesign demonstrates how integrated academic experiences tie competencies together and how academic plans ensure competency alignment at the school, program, and course levels.

The very best academic program is worthless unless it can be implemented successfully. Chapter 4 explains the Integrated Three-Year Model's implementation framework and its challenges. Integrated three-year programs have implementation challenges that other programs do not have. This chapter describes a change model as well as the resistance one can expect from a project like this. However, the rewards for perseverance can be substantial.

Does the Integrated Three-Year-Degree Model actually work? Chapter 5 is a proof-of-concept chapter that focuses on Southern New Hampshire University's (SNHU) experience with this model. The results and analyses of financial considerations for students and their families and for higher education institutions are covered. Also covered are the results and analyses of student academic performance, retention, graduation rates, workforce readiness, and student life. The guiding notion here is that the transition from a four-year program to a three-year program need not, indeed must not, reduce the quality of education.

What kind of value-added dimensions contribute to the success of the Integrated Three-Year-Degree Model? Chapter 6 describes a number of leading dimensions: student cohorts and learning communities, study groups and work groups, academic themes, and professional learning communities of practice. Other value-added dimensions are active teaching and learning paradigms, virtual collaborative learning environments, and assessment of student competency achievement. The chapter walks the reader through the first year from student and faculty points of view. An outline of the second year and a detailed walk-through of the third and final year of a student's program conclude the chapter.

Chapter introduced three types of three-year models. Chapter 7 compares core elements, value-added dimensions, and implementation challenges of the Integrated Model and the Accelerated and Prior Learning Models.

Key questions about the integrated model are presented in Chapter 8 via a question-and-answer format. This chapter addresses major concerns that readers might have about the Integrated Three-Year Model and engages them in a dialogue to expose some of the less obvious ramifications of the model and to reinforce some of the most important ones.

Three-year-degree programs are one thing, but a three-year university is quite another thing altogether. Chapter 9 discusses the key design principles and challenges of a three-year university. It is an outline of what it would take for schools within a university, or an entire university itself, to adopt an Integrated Three-Year Model for most, if not all, of its programs. The chapter also discusses how a three-year university built upon the Integrated Three-Year Model could increase the knowledge and skills college students gain.

The appendices contain many documents and forms to help illuminate and facilitate the process of transforming standard four-year programs into integrated three-year academic programs.

Martin J. Bradley
Robert H. Seidman
Steven R. Painchaud
Manchester, New Hampshire

Acknowledgments

We are very grateful to the many dedicated former and current faculty and professional and support staff members at Southern New Hampshire University whose contributions to developing and nurturing an integrated, competency-based three-year degree program over the past sixteen years made this book possible. We salute the many three-year-degree students who have graduated from the program and those we have had the pleasure of teaching.

In particular, we offer special recognition to the contributions made by Dr. Robert Losik in the early design phase of this program—his creativity and energy was unmatched. Dr. C. Richard Erskine enthusiastically read multiple drafts of our work—his insightful comments and suggestions made our manuscript better. Our heartfelt appreciation goes to Mrs. Karla Lamphere, who joined the three-year design team support staff in 1996 and worked tirelessly over this past year on the manuscript's structure and layout.

We thank the members of the original design team and steering committee: Dr. Robert Begiebing, Dr. Robert Craven, Dr. Robert Doucette, Professor Eleanor Dunfey-Freiburger, Dr. Robert Losik, the late Professor Richard Pantano, Ms. Jacqueline Ribaudo, and Professor Carol West. Our thanks also go out to Dr. Richard Gustafson, Dr. Jacqueline F. Mara, Dr. Steven Harvey, Ms. Polly St. Hilaire, Ms. Karen D’Bate, Mr. Brad Poznanski, and Mr. Edward M. Shapiro. For their long-time support, thanks to Dr. Jack Evans, Mrs. Ashley Liadis, Ms. Patricia Gerard, Dr. Ronald Biron, and Mrs. Patricia Shrader as well as to Dr. Tej Dhakar and Dr. Kishore Pochampally for their assistance with the statistical analyses in the book. Thanks also to our friends at Fidelity Investments, Mr. Jim Hecker of Fitz Vogt Associates, Mr. Jean Michaud of Kaleidoscope Inc., Mr. Rene Drouin of the New Hampshire Higher Education Assistance Foundation, and others too numerous to name.

We are appreciative of the excellent research support we received from Danielle Cross, Janessa Gray, and Elena Painchaud. And we are deeply appreciative for the support we received from the Southern New Hampshire University administration for this book project.

Finally, we are also thankful for the expert guidance given to us by the editorial staff at Jossey-Bass, especially Aneesa Davenport, who was the steward on the publishing process.

About the Authors

Martin J. Bradley was the principal investigator of the U.S. Department of Education Fund for the Improvement of Postsecondary Education (FIPSE) three-year-degree grant awarded in 1995 to Southern New Hampshire University (then called New Hampshire College). He was the first director of the Three-Year Program and then the dean of the SNHU School of Business, where the program resides administratively. He has taught in the program since its inception. Bradley won the university's highest teaching award in 2001 and was recognized as Outstanding Professor for the State of New Hampshire in 2002. Bradley is now professor of Organizational Leadership at SNHU.

Robert H. Seidman was a member of the FIPSE grant team that created the Integrated Three-Year-Degree Program at SNHU in 1996. He has taught in the program and has been a steering committee member continuously since its inception. He is a professor of Computer Information Technology, executive editor of the Journal of Educational Computing Research, joint author of Predicting the Behavior of the Educational System (1990), coauthor of Fluency with Alice (2009), and author of numerous journal articles and book chapters. He was the Southern New Hampshire University Faculty Scholar for the 2010–2011 academic year. His website is .

Steven R. Painchaud has taught in the Three-Year Program since its inception and has played a key role in the year one end-of-semester integrating experience. Now a professor of Organizational Leadership, he served for fifteen years as the associate dean of the Graduate School of Business before joining the faculty in 2000. Painchaud received the highest honor of the Accreditation Council for Business Schools and Programs (ACBSP) for excellence in tea-ching and is a longstanding member of the three-year-degree stee-ring committee. His daughter completed the three-year-degree program in 2008.