Cal State may soon offer a 3-year B.S

Students may soon be able to earn a bachelor’s degree in just three years at California State University campuses as system leaders grapple with the need to attract more working-age students and those without degrees who want to boost their job prospects.

The system’s trustees voted unanimously last week to allow campuses to create three new types abbreviated bachelor’s degrees:

• Bachelor of Education, for aspiring teachers who want a bachelor’s degree focused on teaching specifically
• A Bachelor of Professional Studies that is aimed at employees in management positions that will give them credit for skills acquired in past jobs
• The Bachelor of Applied Science will be aimed at students with vocational or technical training, such as car maintenance or home heating repair

The new types of degrees don’t replace existing four-year bachelor’s degrees in arts and sciences, but instead will expand the offerings that campuses can provide — if they want to. There is no mandate for campuses to create these.

Nor should new degrees be only three years. They can require any number of units that take between three and four years to complete. The policy sets the minimum units for these types of degrees at 90 units – which typically take three years for students to complete. A four-year degree usually requires 120 units.

The changes are intended to “reduce the time it takes students to earn a degree” and “offer more immediate access to economic and social mobility,” Nathan Evans said at last week’s trustees meeting. He is California State’s associate vice chancellor for academic affairs and helped write the policy.

The new offerings are also designed to compete with for-profit and online colleges, which offer faster degree programs but are generally much more expensive than what Cal State charges.

Students transferring from community colleges can choose those degrees to earn a bachelor’s degree in one year instead of two, Evans said in an interview. Adults with work experience and busy schedules can choose these so they can convert some of their work experience into completed education units and complete degrees faster, saving money.

Battling enrollment declines

Today, some California State campuses are seeing enrollment growth, but others are not struggling with high student lossesprompting us to think about how to attract more learners and plug the financial holes of lost tuition revenue. Ten campuses have seen double-digit percentage decline in enrollment between 2020 and 2025, including Easy Bay and Dominguez Hills.

Evans said the new degrees could appeal to workers in high-stress fields, such as those on Hollywood sets. Campuses that accept these shorter degrees can pair them with master’s programs in professional disciplines as part of accelerated pathways, Evans said.

Officials in the chancellor’s office indicated that a a handful of universities other states already offer these faster types of degrees, such as Cornell Universityon University of Kansas and New Mexico State University. Meanwhile, the University of California is promoting traditional four-year bachelor’s degrees that students can earn earn for three yearssuch as economics and mathematics at UC Santa Cruz. Students there usually have to take summer courses to fit all their courses into the tighter window.

This fall is the earliest faculty at Cal State’s 22 campuses will begin work on developing these new degrees. The first to debut could come as soon as fall 2027, but more likely in 2028, Evans said.

California is home to more than 6 million working-age adults with a high school diploma but no higher education. Half of them have earned college credit.

Bachelor’s degree recipients in California typically earn an annual salary of $96,000, according to data from 2024. That’s $65,000 for those with associate degrees and $48,000 for workers with only a high school diploma. Student loans may eat up those paychecks, but most Cal State students earn their B.A.without debt.

Another change allows Cal State students to earn a degree without having to earn a minimum number of units at any campus. In the past, students had to earn at least 30 units on a California State campus to be awarded a degree. This campus-wide requirement is now gone, which may make it easier for some students to earn a bachelor’s degree, such as those who previously dropped out of one Cal state, transferred, and are returning to another Cal state campus to complete their degree.

Some educators express concern

The systemwide academic senate, a key player in shaping academic programming, supports the shorter degree plan overall but objects to specific parts. The academic senate wrote publicly before the board voted that any degree requiring fewer than 120 units should not be called a bachelor’s but some other degree name. They also wrote that these new degree programs should expire after 10 years unless an evaluation shows that degrees requiring fewer units have merit.

“A student who worked hard to earn a 120-unit degree will be lumped together with a student who took only 90 units, so traditional BAs and BAs will be devalued. Frankly, students may feel offended that their hard-earned (in terms of money and in terms of academic work) BAs and BAs are being treated the same as degrees with fewer units,” the letter states.

The letter said almost all of the advocacy for the new bachelor’s program came from College in 3an organization that advocates for three-year degrees with about 60 member campuses. However, there are thousands of colleges across the country that have not joined the group, the letter said.

The senate president, Elizabeth “Betsy” A. Boyd, told trustees the senate wanted to hold off on approving the new degrees until at least September. The trustees refused this request.

Evans told trustees in an interview that colleges in Europe award bachelor’s degrees in three years. But the academic senate’s letter said that’s only because European high schools are more rigorous than U.S. high schools and, in turn, may offer fewer courses once those students enter college.

But one trustee was sympathetic to the academic senate’s concerns. Jack McGrory, who often accuses California’s state system of requiring too many general education courses, said “we’re reducing the quality and meaning of a bachelor’s degree by reducing the number of units,” with these new types of degrees.

California state officials stressed that these new degrees will not replace existing four-year bachelor’s degrees and that the system is not moving to fewer units for all of its bachelor’s degree offerings.

Other trustees supported the measure but said the chancellor’s office was not doing enough to consult with faculty. “I don’t feel comfortable approving things that they feel they haven’t consulted enough about,” Trustee Larry Adamson said.

One possible obstacle to the creation of accelerated degrees is regional accreditor approval of academic offerings at California colleges and universities. But Evans said the accreditor, the quasi-federal Western Association of Schools and Colleges, is on board with these degrees.

“WASC has already approved five or six of these degrees for their universities that are part of their accreditation region, and they expect many more to come,” Evans said in an interview.

He noted to trustees that the regional accreditor recommends slightly different names for the shorter bachelor’s degrees. California state officials heeded that advice — which is why new degrees have “applied,” “educational,” or “professional” in their titles.

“We’re not imposing anything. It’s really an opportunity to experiment and be more flexible,” Julia Lopez, a trustee, said during the board meeting. For campuses without enrollment issues, these shorter bachelor’s degrees may not be what they want to do. But for campuses on a state watch list for weak enrollment, a faster degree could attract the students they desperately seek.

On campuses with many part-time or working-age students, or with the goal of attracting them, “this can be a real opportunity to offer growth where there hasn’t been growth before,” she said.