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Regular Session, 2014
HOUSE CONCURRENT RESOLUTI ON NO. 96
BY REPRESENTATIVE BADON
A CONCURRENT RESOLUTI ON
To urge and request public postsecondary education institutions offering baccalaureate
degrees to develop and promote plans that will enable students to complete such
degrees in three years.
WHEREAS, the rising costs of postsecondary education are creating numerous
detrimental effects including increasing the number of potential students for whom a college
education is cost prohibitive, placing tremendous financial strain on students' family budgets,
difficulties in balancing state budgets as the state's obligations increase, and the burgeoning
debt with which many students are graduating; and
WHEREAS, postsecondary education policy makers should explore every available
option for reducing the cost of postsecondary education so as to mitigate these detrimental
effects; and
WHEREAS, one policy option that is worthy of serious attention is reducing the time
it takes to complete a bachelor's degree to three years; and
WHEREAS, numerous factors can contribute to the possibility that a student can
finish undergraduate studies in three years: high school Advanced Placement courses and
other opportunities to start college with a substantial number of completed credits, summer
and intersession course offerings at the institution, appropriate academic advising that begins
very early in the student's academic career, and flexibility in graduation requirements that
helps students avoid having to wait for particular courses to be offered; and
WHEREAS, though in most cases there are no legal or policy-based impediments
preventing students in Louisiana public colleges or universities from completing an
undergraduate degree in three years, there has not been a systematic effort to coordinate the
factors that make doing so possible so as to facilitate and encourage students to avail
themselves of this possibility; and ENROLLEDHCR NO. 96
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WHEREAS, Louisiana's public colleges and universities should be tasked with the
duty of analyzing, identifying, and implementing programs and processes that would make
the three-year degree option available to and practical for more students.
THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED that the Legislature of Louisiana does hereby
urge and request the Louisiana public postsecondary education institutions offering
baccalaureate degrees to develop and promote plans that will enable students to complete
such degrees in three years.
SPEAKER OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATI VES
PRESIDENT OF THE SENATE