Some Oklahoma college students will soon have a shorter path to earning a bachelor’s degree.
The Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education approved four reduced-credit bachelor’s degree programs at three state universities. The programs require between 90 and 103 credit hours, compared with the minimum 120 credit hours required for a traditional bachelor’s degree.
The approved programs are:
- University of Oklahoma: Bachelor of Applied Studies in Social Work
- Oklahoma State University: Bachelor of Applied Science in Artificial Intelligence
- Oklahoma State University: Bachelor of Applied Science in Business Essentials and Applications
- Rogers State University: Bachelor of Applied Science in Workforce Development
State Regents said the programs are designed to help address Oklahoma’s workforce needs while giving students an opportunity to spend less time and money earning a degree.
Sean Burrage, chancellor of the Oklahoma State Regents for Higher Education, said Oklahoma has room to grow when it comes to the percentage of residents with a bachelor’s degree.
“The problem we have on a nationwide basis is that the average is like 37 percent,” Burrage said. “The businesses are like, are you looking to locate, relocate, in Oklahoma?”
Burrage said employers consider the education level of the available workforce when deciding where to locate or expand.
He said the new degrees were developed by looking at what employers and the workforce need.
“The way they did that, they looked at the workforce, they looked at the business community and said what do you all need? What gap do we need to fill as far as workforces? So, we came up with these,” Burrage said.
The State Regents created a framework for reduced-credit bachelor’s degrees in May 2026 after reviewing the potential for 90-hour degree programs.
The universities had to meet additional criteria before receiving approval, including demonstrating workforce and student demand, establishing learning outcomes and assessment methods, and considering accreditation, professional licensure and graduate-degree implications.
Burrage said the reduced number of credit hours does not mean universities are simply removing courses from a student’s major.
“You are going to find that in the actual major of the study of these they are going to have just as many if not more hours in the actual field of study,” he said.
Instead, universities looked for opportunities to reduce some general education and elective requirements.
State Regents also required a review process specifically focused on whether the programs could maintain academic standards.
“A standard quite frankly, even more rigorous than a traditional review program, progresses to ensure that these programs address specialized criteria under the 90-hour degree format,” Burrage said.
Burrage said students could save about 25% of the cost of a college education if they complete a 90-credit-hour degree instead of a traditional 120-credit-hour degree.
Students could also enter the workforce earlier.
Oklahoma’s concurrent enrollment programs can allow some students to enter college with as many as 30 credit hours, Burrage said.
He said combining those college credits with a 90-hour bachelor’s degree could allow some students to enter the workforce significantly sooner.
“We could have people out in the workforce you know 2 years earlier than they were, let’s say 10 years ago,” Burrage said.
State Regents Chair Courtney Warmington said reduced-credit bachelor’s degrees offer a way for Oklahomans to launch careers faster while reducing college costs.
The programs were approved after an earlier feasibility study examined accreditation standards, workforce alignment, affordability, transferability and other policy considerations.
The study concluded reduced-credit bachelor’s degrees could potentially work within Oklahoma’s public higher education system under a limited and structured framework, particularly in applied, workforce-aligned fields.
The four programs approved are the first reduced-credit bachelor’s degrees approved under the State Regents’ new framework.
