UNC-Greensboro is offering a three year undergrad program with majors offering actual life skills like accounting, information systems and elementary education. That’s great for those not already in debtor’s prison. High School students are in the unenviable position of having to budget for likely stints of unemployment that will overlap with some level of student loan payment. Could this be the great equalizer?

Before I let everyone else weigh-in I’d like to say I think this is a major step in the right direction. With graduate level degrees and additional certifications as prerequisites for even entry level jobs kids need an opportunity to get out into the world before they are 30. Also consider this – say a student lived at home and worked full time, scraping together enough to pay for two semesters of school. Say he then gets into a three year program. According to my Math he’s just cut his borrowing in half.  And that is the name of the game kids.

I changed majors in college twice and still got out in four years. Probably could have done it in less but for all of the requirements outside of my eventual major. If you can get a headstart out of the gate take it.

Stupid idea. First, smart kids and mid-level NBA prospects have been graduating in three years for decades. Next, the job market is clogged enough as it is without a new influx of younger even less well prepared kids. Think of all the dropouts you know. One less year of college and those losers would have degrees and possibly your job. Maybe you’d be pouring them a drink at the end of a long day, listening to their asenine problems, coming to their place at 3 AM for bad sex only to have YOUR clothes thrown out the window at 6 AM as a friendly reminder to get going. Ahhhh, what a difference a year makes.

Higher Education is an act of faith. You are putting your trust in the collective wisdom of past generations to equip you with the tools you need to move yourself and society forward. In my opinion that sacred trust has been violated and it is up to us to craft new rules of the road. I owe relatively little compared to present company but I could not in good conscience counsel anyone to go down our path and foresake a more affordable option. That said, none of us knows what it’s like to get into an elite school, forego it and spend a lifetime wondering.

I was happy for four years and then was miserable for eight. Would I flatten the peaks to fill valleys, particularly considering I will likely die alone in the shadows smothered by quiet desperation? Perhaps. Just as high school has become simply a training ground for college, so has college become simply a training ground for graduate pursuits…all leading to a pyrite ticket. A three year degree might destroy the life within college and it might enable life afterwards. Or it might do both or neither.

This is obviously moot for me and everyone else who did or is planning to major in something real. I got out in four plus two summer semesters. Administrative gimmicks can’t change physics, organic chemistry or cell bio. You want to save money and time rolling my way? Two words: Rot. See. You gotta love a man in uniform.