Are Hyper-Accelerated Online Degrees Scalable for the Modern Workforce?

• Students are earning bachelor’s degrees at a “breakneck pace” thanks to a new “degree hacking” trend in which they race through online programs in a matter of months and sometimes just weeks, the Washington Post reports. The phenomenon is also known as “college speed runs” or “hyper-accelerated degrees.”
• The trend has spawned a “cottage industry of influencers” who make videos about how swiftly they obtained their degrees and are encouraging others to follow suit, the article states. Some are even charging hundreds and thousands of dollars to provide coaching to other students on how they can earn their degrees quickly, too.
• The size and scope of the practice — which is not tracked in federal databases that track completion rates at the institutional level — is raising concerns among educators and accreditors, who question the value of a bachelor’s degree that can be earned within a fraction of the traditional four years it typically takes.

The bigger picture:

In order to meet workforce needs and foster more upward mobility, educators and policymakers have long been exploring new ways to enable students to earn college degrees and other postsecondary credentials — often online — more quickly and more affordably.

One popular approach is dual enrollment, which enables high school students to earn college credit — and even an associate degree — while still in high school, thereby shortening the time needed after graduation to earn a bachelor’s degree. And a nascent “college-in-three” movement features institutions starting to offer three-year bachelor’s degrees by cutting out electives and only requiring about 90 or so credits as opposed to the traditional 120 credits. Those approaches to helping students save time and money on their degrees are ones that institutions can more easily control.