AAUP president Todd Wolfson and AFT president Randi Weingarten issued the following statement.
The approval of accelerated three-year bachelor’s degrees at Suffolk and Merrimack Universities in Massachusetts threatens academic integrity by substituting for a comprehensive education a stripped-down curriculum that prioritizes speed over essential intellectual development. This move may initially create the illusion of reducing costs, but it ignores the root causes of skyrocketing higher education tuition.
A bachelor's degree should both prepare students for the workforce and provide them with deep learning, broad intellectual development, and sustained engagement with faculty and peers—not simply the fastest possible route to the labor market. Compressing or reducing the curriculum threatens to narrow students' education at precisely the moment when society needs graduates with stronger critical thinking, communication skills, scientific literacy, and civic understanding.
Higher education should be affordable for all. This will require expanding and strengthening Pell, TRIO and other federal and state-level programs —not asking students to accept less education for the same credential. We should reduce the cost of earning a bachelor's degree, not cut corners and devalue what a bachelor's degree means.