How Many Years Is A Bachelors Degree For The Average Student?

Key Infor­ma­tion:

• The aver­age stu­dent com­pletes a bach­e­lor’s degree pro­gram in 4 years.
• AP class­es, dual-enroll­ment cours­es and CLEP test­ing can help you com­plete a bach­e­lor’s degree in less than 4 years.
• Lamar Uni­ver­si­ty and West­ern Gov­er­nors Uni­ver­si­ty offer accel­er­at­ed bach­e­lor’s degree programs. 

Bach­e­lor degrees typ­i­cal­ly take four years to com­plete. Most schools require their stu­dents to com­plete 120 cred­it hours, which breaks down to 30 cred­its per year, or 15 cred­its per semes­ter. The 120 cred­its are usu­al­ly divid­ed between intro­duc­to­ry gen­er­al edu­ca­tion cours­es that form the core cur­ricu­lum, and then upper-lev­el cours­es in a spe­cif­ic area that stu­dents choose to major in. 

Stu­dents are often allowed to take up to 20 cred­its a semes­ter, which would allow them to com­plete their degree in three years.

Com­plet­ing a bachelor’s degree in under four years is pos­si­ble if you plan care­ful­ly and use avail­able resources. One way is to take Advanced Place­ment (AP) or dual-enroll­ment cours­es in high school. You can earn col­lege cred­its ear­ly and reduce the num­ber of cours­es you need in college. 

Many col­leges also offer cred­it by exam­i­na­tion pro­grams, like CLEP, where you can test out of cer­tain required class­es if you already know the mate­r­i­al. Anoth­er option is to enroll in sum­mer or win­ter ses­sion cours­es, which allow you to earn extra cred­its dur­ing breaks.

If you’re attend­ing a school with flex­i­ble sched­ules, online class­es or evening cours­es can help you take more class­es at once, allow­ing you to fin­ish faster. Choos­ing a col­lege that offers a high num­ber of trans­fer cred­its can also save time if you’ve already com­plet­ed some col­lege course­work. It’s also smart to work close­ly with an aca­d­e­m­ic advi­sor to ensure you’re meet­ing all grad­u­a­tion require­ments with­out tak­ing unnec­es­sary courses. 

Anoth­er strat­e­gy is to focus on one major with­out adding minors or extra elec­tives, as this can keep you on track for a short­er time­line. By stay­ing orga­nized, study­ing hard, and using these resources, you can reach grad­u­a­tion soon­er and start your career earlier.

Relat­ed:

• Accel­er­at­ed Online Bachelor’s Degree Programs
• Are There Any Accel­er­at­ed Degree Pro­grams For Bachelor’s Degrees?
• Where Can I Find An Online Accel­er­at­ed Bach­e­lors Degree?
• What Are The Best Accel­er­at­ed Self-Paced Online Col­lege Programs?
• Accel­er­at­ed Bachelor’s Degree Pro­grams: The Advan­tages and Disadvantages

Accelerated Bachelor’s Degrees

Accel­er­at­ed pro­grams are designed to allow moti­vat­ed stu­dents with excel­lent time man­age­ment skills to expe­dite their edu­ca­tion. This requires stu­dents to take heavy course loads which can become over­whelm­ing, and it is not rec­om­mend­ed that stu­dents work a full time job if they are in an accel­er­at­ed pro­gram. How­ev­er, if a stu­dent can han­dle the extra work, it can pay div­i­dends by allow­ing them to enter the work­force faster than usu­al. To fur­ther con­sid­er whether an accel­er­at­ed pro­gram is right for you, refer to our guide that goes into detail about Accel­er­at­ed Bachelor’s Degree Pro­grams: The Advan­tages and Dis­ad­van­tages.

Finding the Right Program

If you have decid­ed that an accel­er­at­ed bachelor’s degree is a good choice for you, the next step is to find the right school. Many accel­er­at­ed degrees are offered in online for­mats, because it allows stu­dents to main­tain some lev­el of sched­ule flex­i­bil­i­ty while they are over­loaded with work. For ref­er­ence to the fastest accel­er­at­ed online pro­grams, check out our list of the Fastest Online Bachelor’s Degrees. Let’s take a clos­er look at a cou­ple of the fastest online Bachelor’s degrees.

Fast Online Bachelor’s Degree Programs

Lamar University

Lamar Uni­ver­si­ty is a large pub­lic research uni­ver­si­ty locat­ed in Beau­mont, Texas, with a stu­dent pop­u­la­tion of over 15,000. The uni­ver­si­ty offers accel­er­at­ed degree pro­grams both on cam­pus and online. Stu­dents look­ing to enroll in an accel­er­at­ed online Bachelor’s degree pro­gram from Lamar Uni­ver­si­ty can choose from thir­teen dif­fer­ent majors, includ­ing Crim­i­nal Jus­tice, Gen­er­al Stud­ies, and Applied Arts and Sci­ences. Most of the online class­es are offered in tra­di­tion­al 15-week semes­ters as well as accel­er­at­ed eight-week pro­grams, allow­ing stu­dents to com­plete their cours­es faster than normal. 

Western Governors University

West­ern Gov­er­nors Uni­ver­si­ty is a pri­vate, non­prof­it uni­ver­si­ty that was found­ed in 1997 and is locat­ed in Salt Lake City, Utah. Their uni­ver­si­ty offers online degrees from four col­leges: Col­lege of Busi­ness, Teach­ers Col­lege, Col­lege of Infor­ma­tion Tech­nol­o­gy, and Col­lege of Health Pro­fes­sions. Their col­leges offer 29 dif­fer­ent online Bachelor’s degrees, and a vari­ety of online Master’s degrees. The uni­ver­si­ty has a unique strat­e­gy for accel­er­at­ing class sched­ules by bas­ing their pro­grams on com­pe­ten­cy-based edu­ca­tion (CBE) as opposed to time spent in class, which allows stu­dents to earn their degree as soon as they have mas­tered the mate­r­i­al. This allows stu­dents with pre­vi­ous knowl­edge and expe­ri­ence to stream­line their edu­ca­tion­al expe­ri­ence, and test out of a course before the com­ple­tion of a full semester. 

Relat­ed:

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Fastest Online Bachelor’s in Radi­a­tion Science

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Fastest Online Bachelor’s in Envi­ron­men­tal Science

Fastest Online Bachelor’s in Legal Studies

Fastest Online Bachelor’s in Actu­ar­i­al Science

Fastest Online Bachelor’s in Sup­ply Chain Management

Fastest Online Bachelor’s in Busi­ness Administration

Fastest Online Bachelor’s in Engi­neer­ing Management