In 2009, Robert Zemsky, a professor of education at the University of Pennsylvania, proposed a radical idea: a three-year college degree, which, he argued, would serve as a catalyst for fundamental change in higher education. “It’s time to look for something that will really make us rethink everything instead of just rethinking the things along the perimeter,” he told Newsweek. The idea barely registered. Higher education, long accustomed to the comfortable architecture of 120 credits spread across four years, was not ready to question itself. Accrediting agencies were opposed. Zemsky pressed on anyway, arguing that only a genuine “dislodging event” would force the academy to question its assumptions all at once.
