NWCCU Approves Accelerated Bachelor's Degrees and Policy Updates

At their Summer 2025 meeting, the NWCCU Board of Commissioners approved removing the pilot designation for the current accelerated degrees at Brigham Young University – Idaho and Ensign College. In addition, they approved allowing institutions to submit substantive change proposals to offer bachelor’s degrees based on students achieving specific learning outcomes within a reduced credit hour amount rather than requiring a traditional number of credit hours to the degree. This will fall under NWCCU’s Substantive Change policy and process.

We will be working quickly to provide institutions additional guidance, but for now there are two categories institutions can select to submit those substantive changes under:

1. Substantially Changing the Number of Clock or Credit Hours – This category would be selected if your institution is seeking to modify the credit hours of an existing degree program or add a reduced-credit degree program parallel to an existing program of traditional length that will remain in the Program Inventory.
2. Adding Program Content or Academic Program(s) that Represent a Significant Departure (25% or more aggregate change) from Program(s) or Related Programs Approved Previously – This category would be selected if your institution is seeking to add a new degree program with reduced credit hours that is not currently offered by the institution. Page 17 of the Substantive Change Manual, under item 4, outlines the key areas that an institution will currently need to address when submitting a substantive change proposal for a bachelor’s degree seeking to offer less than the historical 120 semester or 180 quarter units/credits.

At this time, we have not designated a name for these degrees, but it is essential that the institution include an identifier of the accelerated nature of these degrees within the program name. We recognize that some institutions and/or systems are referring to them as Accelerated Bachelor’s, Three-Year Bachelor’s, Reduced Credit Bachelor’s, and/or Bachelor’s of Applied Studies. We want to ensure that states and institutions have the necessary flexibility regarding naming conventions at this time. We may determine, at some point, that there is general consensus on a degree name, but for now we are providing institutional flexibility.

• Categories
• Commission
• NWCCU Updates
• Substantive Change More From Volume 7, Issue 4 More From Volume 7, Issue 4 V7I4: Letter from the President V7I4: Miles Community College Named an Opportunity College and University by the Carnegie Classifications V7I4: Commission Opens Process for Accelerated Bachelor’s Degrees V7I4: Commission Appointments and Updates V7I4: Policy Updates – July 2025 V7I4: Standards Review and Revision Process Update V7I4: Ed Harri Appointed Executive Vice President of NWCCU V7I4: NWCCU Thanks Dr. Jeff Fox for Service as Interim President V7I4: Welcome New Presidents V7I4: Nominations for Beacon Award due August 15 V7I4: Reminders and Events