Who We Are
Reimagining undergraduate education to increase student success while decreasing student costs
Welcome! The College-in-3 Exchange is a collective of campuses hosting conversations to design undergraduate degree options that increase student success while decreasing student costs. This idea has moved from an experiment of a few campuses to an organized movement, serving as a catalyst for reimagining undergraduate education using evidence-based practice to inform a variety of designs that are not only shorter and less expensive, but better.
The College-in-3 Exchange is a national higher education innovation incubator – building on the accomplishments of early pilots to bring new designs to scale.
Sound interesting? Let’s talk!
Exchange Members
Adrian College
California State University Dominguez Hills
Eastern Illinois University
Loma Linda University
Lasell University
Merrimack College
Northern Illinois University
Southern Utah University
The Chicago School
The College of New Jersey
University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee
Weber State University
Youngstown State University
and more…
Leadership
Lori J. Carrell
Chancellor of the
University of Minnesota Rochester
Lori J. Carrell
Lori Carrell, chancellor of the University of Minnesota Rochester, focuses on transformative communication, learning innovation and well-being in higher education communities. Co-author, Communicate for a Change: Revitalizing Conversations for Higher Education.
Robert Zemsky (Bob)
Professor of Education at the University of Pennsylvania
Robert Zemsky
Bob Zemsky, long-time professor at Penn, has forcefully argued that colleges and universities need to be transformed from within. Co-author, Communicate for a Change: Revitalizing Conversations for Higher Education.
Madeleine Green
Independent Consultant and former Vice President at the American Council on Education
Madeleine Green
Madeleine Green, independent consultant and former Vice President at the American Council on Education. She has translated her experiences working with varied institutions on leadership development, change management and international education into many books and articles, including co-authoring “On Change” a series
of monographs.
Debbie Beauchene
Project Coordinator for College-in-3 and Former Educator
Debbie Beauchene
Debbie Beauchene, project coordinator for College-in-3 and former educator. A passionate advocate for transforming volunteer and community engagement.
Our Convener/Cluster Strategy
The College-in-3 Exchange is a national endeavor, organized with a Convener and Cluster strategy. Conveners may be a lead campus, an accreditor serving a region, or a national higher education organization. Cluster Participants will have access to the community of early pilots and other participants in their Cluster as well as the thought-leadership and consultation of the national Exchange leaders. Cluster Participants can connect to these communities virtually through ongoing conversations; further, Cluster Participants are invited to meet in person during future annual convenings. This process will support design, internal and external permission, launch, and assessment of student outcomes.
Learn More About the Conveners
Media
Arnold Ventures Supports Project:
College-in-3 Movement Gains Momentum
For Immediate Release
Contact: Madeleine Green, Executive Director
Collegein3exchange@gmail.com
Arnold Ventures Supports Project As 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
Let’s Talk
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