A Three-Year College Program Might Be Best

Since the days of President Eliot, Harvard administrators have debated and rejected proposals to change the undergraduate program from four years to three, and revise College education to permit more rapid graduations. As the Program for Harvard College gathers momentum, the same problems of growing educational needs, and the old solution of revising the curriculum, again assume importance.

Prices for construction, for faculty pay, for expansion and attendant expenditures have mounted steadily and rapidly since World War II. Even so richly endowed a university as Harvard has been forced to launch far-reaching and comprehensive fund-raising campaigns.

Nor are increasing costs the only problem facing administrators. To acquire an education in today's fast-paced world requires too much time. Students coming from secondary schools face a long gamut of college, military service, and graduate school. Often they are twenty-five or twenty-six before they finish their education.

Large-scale draft programs and the continuing cold war status mean a military obligation for America's youth for a long time to come. Recent innovations, such as the six-month active duty program, are temporary solutions with indefinite futures. Most young men still expect several years in some branch of the armed services before they can safely plan for a home and future.

Each year graduating classes from the nation's universities send greater percentages to professional and post-graduate schools. Harvard is no exception. Business, Law, and Medical schools draw consistently bigger classes as the need and desire for graduate training increases.

Colleges themselves are subject to increasing enrollment. Ambitions for a college education cannot be entirely satisfied by state universities; the junior college program, still in its infancy, is over-crowded and undermanned. Each fall a larger high school graduating class takes more college entrance examinations, and the number of able, qualified young men capable of college work mounts accordingly.

Such a problem will not be solved by waiting; its dimensions grow as times passes. In the flurry of suggestions, the three-year college graduation once again emerges, and an old debate reopens.

Reducing the number of years required for an A.B. degree is hardly a new idea. President Eliot proposed such a plan to the Board of Overseers every year from 1883 through 1908, and each year it was rejected.

President Eliot felt, as many educators feel today, that students were too old upon finishing their education. To meet the problem he initiated an "anticipating system," under which qualified incoming students could take special examinations. If they passed, three of the five freshman courses could be dropped. Such a measure yielded only minute relief. Students still had to accelerate their own four-year programs into three, and enroll in summer school courses to receive an early degree.

In 1906, 36% of the graduating class took advantage of the opportunity for three-year graduation under an accelerated program. Faculty investigation, however, discovered lax standards and sloppy study practices in speeding up the award of a degree. Standards were stiffened and requirements lengthened, and the number of applicants for the program diminished immediately.

Lowell us 3-Year Plan

When President Lowell took the reins of authority in 1909, he instituted new distribution requirements for a degree, rendering graduation in three years impossible. The idea, however, did not die.

In his 1949-50 report to the Overseers, President Conant proposed a three-year college program with emphatic support. In the ensuing discussion one important change over the past emerged: there was to be no "acceleration" of regular courses in the undergraduate years. Involved in the new proposal was a complete revamping of the curriculum. Educators suggested a three-term-per-year plan to ease the revision, instead of the present two-term system. Emphasis in courses would undergo sweeping change. Less specialization in the upperclass years would be required. In short, the whole theory of undergraduate education would be re-examined; the curriculum and courses would be submitted to a scrutiny unique in College history.

Reluctant to attack the foundations of College education, educators examined every other facet of education in the United States. One by one they eliminated other possible areas of change.

Most University officials agreed that the secondary school program is generally a waste of time. Courses of limited scope and a second-rate faculty contributed little to the student's education and failed to introduce him to ideas and books which would prepare him to ideas and books which would prepare him for college work. Part of the University's program could be solved in one of two plans: an early admission program, permitting high school juniors to omit their senior year and come straight to college; or, higher standards and more comprehensive courses on the secondary level.

Ford Foundation experiments with early admission at Chicago and Columbia were not a rousing success. High school students encouraged to advance to college met the idea for the most part with apathy. Counselors advised that many would prove emotionally unequipped for college years.

As for the second alternative, the University, unfortunately, cannot determine higher standards in secondary schools. The colleges have no direct influence over high schools and prep schools, no way to change curricula and institute more meaningful courses of study. Whether raising entrance requirements would force better preparedness on the part of secondary schools is doubtful; on a nation-wide basis it seems highly unlikely that standards would improve because a few colleges heightened admittance requirements.

Thus the burden of change rests with the College and the graduate schools. Could the number of years in graduate schools be reduced?

During World War II, the Business School awarded "Industrial Administrator" degrees after one year of study. The experiment proved unsatisfactory; many students returned after the war to get their regular M.B.A. In 1951, 81% of the Business School felt two years an absolute necessity.

Medical School provides the longest haul for the post-graduate. Yet, as new discoveries occur in biology, physiology, and the related sciences, the vast subject matter increases, rather than affording opportunity for cutting.

In the past some graduate schools have admitted students without a degree, after only three years in college. If such a practice were to become commonplace, educators envision a general deterioration in both college and graduate school. In addition, increasing competition for admittance to any of these schools will mean the necessity of higher qualifications.

Ultimately, the question returns to the College itself. Acceleration lowers the caliber of undergraduate education. Advanced placement affects relatively few students, and, again, is likely to lead to an acceleration program undermining the value of the college education. The only solution President Conant could see was a complete redesigning of the College curriculum on a three-year basis.

There are obvious advantages in such a move. Housing problems would be reduced. Or, with the same facilities, more students could come to Harvard by increasing the size of each of the three remaining classes.

Young men could get their education more quickly. Education would be cheaper, eliminating a year's expense; and it would be faster.

Critics of the three-year program are numerous and vociferous. What will happen to the maturing process, they ask, if students are shuffled through college at such a rate? The nation has enough specialists and experts. Many feel it Harvard's function to produce leaders and inspire sound judment.

Vassar, Amherst, and Williams tried a similar program, and dropped it as an unsuccessful experiment. What reasons are there to think it would be successful at Harvard?

Further counter-arguments claim that extracurricular activities would suffer and die as a result of study intensification. ROTC, for practical purposes, might have to be eliminated; a three-year student might be unable to carry the extra course.

There is a deep concern that the undergraduate years may become a transitory stop-gap, a short breather between secondary school and graduate education. Within such a concept, College education would wither; the contribution would deteriorate, and the meaning of an A.B. degree would diminish.

Finally, there is the Harvard ideal of "The Whole Man," the well-rounded individual. If college education is cut and tailored for the prospective professional, what happens to this ideal. Will Harvard produce nothing but "specialists" and "experts?" Such questions lead to more basic ones, on the nature and responsibility of education, and the role of the university in society.

In light of the current debate on the function of the Ivy League colleges in the nation's educational panorama, this problem becomes all the more pressing. Solutions to time, money, and curriculum question-marks are needed now. Debate over the fundamental bases of education take on a real and urgent nature. The three-year college program is a controversial plan. But perhaps these proposals, by very virtue of their controversial nature, will at least air the questions, and revitalize our search for answers.