Arnold Ventures Supports Project:

College-in-3 Movement Gains Momentum

December 5, 2024 – College-in-3 Exchange announced an investment from Arnold Ventures (AV) to support technical assistance for scaling of three-year Baccalaureate degrees. With AV’s support, the Exchange will work closely with member institutions that have designed, received regulatory approval for, and by fall 2025 will have launched three-year degree programs. The Exchange also will advise other member institutions that are working towards launching three-year programs with the goal of providing high quality college education at a reduced cost. The College-in-3 Exchange will collect data from member institutions, including learning outcomes, completion rates, and post-graduation placements. It will use these data to create a foundation for future research on the impact of three-year degree programs. The data will enable researchers to explore how these programs impact first-to-second-year retention and compare outcomes with traditional four-year degree programs.

Arnold Ventures is a philanthropy that supports research to understand the root causes of America’s most persistent and pressing problems, as well as evidence-based solutions to address them.  Today, half the nation’s four-year colleges and universities lose a quarter or more of their first-time enrollment in their freshman year, while completion rates continue to decline.

Participating colleges and universities have each designed new curricula, focusing on learning outcomes, high-impact practices, and a first year of study that lays the groundwork for a successful college career. Among the current 43 member institutions, several have launched three-year programs, while others are designing programs and/or seeking regulatory approval. Multiple institutional accreditors have created an approval pathway for three-year degrees with fewer than the traditional 120 credits; one does not require special approval. The College-in-3 Exchange expects to have 50 member institutions by the end of 2025 and 100 by the fall of 2026, which will represent a critical mass of institutions.

Lori Carrell and Bob Zemsky, who co-founded College-in-3 in 2022 with a few pilot institutions, are pleased to see growing national interest in a three-year degree. “We are grateful for the confidence Arnold Ventures has shown in our work, and we are excited for the opportunity to continue our scaling efforts and lay the groundwork for future research that can test the efficacy of these degrees.”

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About the College-in-3 Exchange The College-in-3 Exchange, founded by Robert Zemsky, Professor of Education at the University of Pennsylvania’s Graduate School of Education, and Lori Carrell, Chancellor of the University of Minnesota Rochester,is now an incorporated not-for-profit enterprise.  Madeleine F Green, former vice president at the American Council on Education, serves as its Executive Director, Deborah Collins as Program Manager. The chair of the new Board of Directors is Wallace Boston, President Emeritus of the American Public University System (APUS). He is joined by board members Richard Ekman, President Emeritus of the Council of Independent Colleges (CIC) and Mary Linda Armacost, President Emerita of Wilson College. The College-in-3 Exchange thanks the University of Minnesota for hosting the Exchange in its early years of operation