The issue of whether to allow colleges and universities in Massachusetts to offer three-year bachelor’s degrees, reducing the typical 120-credit requirement, continues to raise questions among members of the Board of Higher Education.

Board Chairman Chris Gabrieli said there is enough interest among board members to soon look at draft regulations to allow the measure. Three-year bachelor’s degrees are starting to gain traction around the country as a more affordable option for students in certain designated areas of study.

To earn a traditional four-year bachelor’s degree, students are required to take and pay for 120 credits. An associate’s degree, or a two-year degree, is 60 credits. The three-year bachelor’s programs that some universities around the country are beginning to offer are sub-120 credits -- students will graduate with the same degree as those who attend school for four years, but they’ll have completed fewer credit hours to do so.

The New England Commission of Higher Education, an institutional accreditor for most of the private and public colleges in New England, gave a green light last year to Merrimack College in North Andover to pilot a three-year program focused on non-licensure majors, like business, health science, physics and liberal arts degrees.

Merrimack College announced in 2022 that it was exploring three-year degree programs.

“By rethinking how students can learn the same skills and materials they would in a traditional four-year program in three-quarters of the time, project leaders hope to reduce barriers that limit student affordability, access and progression towards a degree,” the college said at the time.

However, they cannot move forward with the program unless the Board of Higher Education creates a clear path for the reduced credit degrees. The board discussed the idea Tuesday, continuing a conversation that began in 2024, but members still have a wide range of opinions about how to regulate sub-120 credit degrees.

“If there’s a strong desire from individuals to pursue something here, I’d want to understand why and to what end,” said member Alex Cortex. “But if their needs are for a faster, more targeted experience to pursue a profession, and neither employers or graduate education is going to recognize the value of this pathway, then it’s not going to end up serving anyone, be it institutions, individuals or employers.”

Some members are concerned about what to call the degrees, and whether they should be labeled the same as four-year bachelor degrees that require more credits.

Harneen Chernow, a board member and director of education at 1199 SEIU, asked whether the board would be opening an option for community colleges to offer bachelor’s degrees, instead of just two-year associate degrees, if they create an option for a 90-credit three-year degree.

“We don’t have a clear path,” Gabrieli responded. “Do we say everybody can do anything they want? Or do we say we have historically well-defined lanes, but we’re open to pilots if they’re well structured from an institution in good standing and are going to provide evidence, and we don’t have to change the rules until or unless the evidence accumulates that it would be good to do.”

He later added that the board hopes to look at draft regulation language at their meeting next month, to begin to move the conversation forward with real parameters.

Board member Judy Pagliuca encouraged the board to consider regulations that would allow a pathway for colleges or universities to propose three-year programs.

“If you don’t innovate, you’re left behind,” she said. “So we have to find a way to do it. Secondly, we really do exist to serve the students... And given what I’ve heard, there’s many reasons why the students would want to have a quicker path, primarily because costs have ballooned.”