1.  It actually takes only 6 months, Monday through Friday, 9 hour days of classroom time to earn a 120 credit hour Bachelor degree from any traditional college or university in the United States. 

The problem is that no college or university offers courses on the basis of a regular work week.  Who do you suppose benefits from the current system?  Not the students or parents who foot the bill.

2.  It actually takes only 6 weeks of 9 hour days, Monday through Friday (1 and a half months) to earn a Master's degree from any traditional college or university in the United States. 

However, no school offers such a schedule.

3.  It actually takes only 12 weeks of 9 hour days, Monday through Friday (3 months) to earn a Doctoral degree (except Doctor of Medicine) from any traditional college or university in the United States.  The problem is that no school offers such a schedule.

4.  A 3 credit hour course converts to 27 clock hours in the classroom.

5.  In reading the details below, note the difference between credit hours and clock hours.

Skeptical?  Read on.

The Details

Bachelor Degree MYTH

It takes 120 credit hours and 4 years to earn a Bachelor degree from a traditional state or private university.

Bachelor Degree TRUTH

It takes 120 credit hours typically, but it does not take 4 years.  The only reason it takes 4 years is because the clock hours actually spent in a classroom are spread over 4 years in order to make room for sports, social activities, vacations, fraternity and sorority functions, and for the convenience of professors and administrators, not students and their parents who foot the bill. 

A 3 credit hour class meets approximately 3 times per week for 45 minutes for 12 to 15 weeks.  This is a total of 135 minutes per week for, let's say, 12 weeks.  One hundred and thirty five minutes equals 2 hours and 15 minutes times 12 weeks equals 27 hours of classroom time.  Twenty seven hours of classroom time could be compressed into three 9 hour days, like a regular work day for most people. 

In a typical 120 credit hour Bachelor degree program, on average, 40 courses are taken over 4 years assuming each is a 3 credit hour course. 

If classroom time is compressed to three 9 hour days, and there are 20 work days of Monday through Friday each work week, we know that 40 courses times 3 days per course equals a total of 120 days in the classroom for an entire Bachelor degree program.

Assuming four 5 day work weeks per month, how many months would it take to complete a Bachelor degree program?

Answer:  SIX MONTHS

This calculation is the reason that a traditional education at a state or private university is a scam on the public. 

The truth is that it should only take approximately 20 work days per month for six months to complete the required classroom hours for a Bachelor degree.  (120 credit hours)

Why do some accrediting bodies insist that it must take 4 years?

 A typical Master's degree program is 30 to 45 credit hours and it takes one to two years to earn the degree.

Master's Degree Truth

Answer:  1 and 1/2 Months 

(Ten courses times three 9 hour days.  Three days times ten courses equals thirty days).  Assuming 20 work days per month, Monday through Friday, it takes approximately 1 and a half months to do the classroom time to earn the Master's degree.  (30 credit hours)

Doctoral Degree MYTH

From the above calculations, we know that a Doctoral degree should take no more than 3 months to complete.  (60 credit hours) (Not including Doctor of Medicine)

Because the traditional accrediting bodies, state governments, and the federal government don't operate education like a business.  Businesses have to pursue excellence to compete and win.   

Traditional educators operate education like they operate everything else:  leisurely.   It's not their money; it's taxpayer's money; and they are not accountable to anyone for how they spend it. 

Our elected representatives are the problem because they allow and perpetuate the current system. 

The current system has evolved for the convenience of government, employees of the traditional system, including tenured professors, and others who feed off the current system for their own benefit, not because they are pursuing excellence. 

Higher education in the United States is vastly overpriced and the existence of federal student loan money feeds the system and those who operate it for their own benefit. 

Make no mistake about it, the U. S. system of higher education exists as it does for the benefit of everyone EXCEPT students and their parents.

It's time for a change!

Higher education needs to be transformed into a competitive system.