What do people think of NEWU Dual Academy, followed by the free single year at NEWU to complete your Bachelors
I realize this is available worldwide…but what country is it based out of.
My opinion…graduating from undergrad school after one year at under age 20 is not an advantage.
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OH started offering Dual Credit courses in HS in an effort to shave 1-2 years off their instate 4 year publics, including OSU. IMO, that’s a much better model than a for profit HS with a pathway to a single university.
And FWIW, my D’s university accepted those DC credits as well so they were more broadly accepted than just in state.
I also agree with Thumper that graduating early at 20 is a major disadvantage for both grad school and the work force.
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Three pillars: soft skills, business acumen, AI proficiency.
I have never worked for an employer (35+ years in talent management/recruiting at large multi-national corporations) that would find the combination of these three things to be comprehensive/attractive.
Business acumen in a HS student– nah. AI Proficiency- what does that even mean- being able to use Perplexity or query another application? Soft skills- what do they consider a soft skill? Being fluent in Mandarin or Russian- that’s a hard skill (and employers consider foreign language skills very valuable). Being able to explain a complex regression to a non-technical audience- yes, that’s a soft skill, but it relies on someone having taken a rigorous stats class in order to understand the regression in the first place!
This seems like a ploy to get kids who have no interest in college to get stamped with a degree in the easiest way possible.
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It’s based in the USA.
I believe it is a nonprofit.
While completeing your bachelor’s degree for free in only one year is offered, they say they expect most will use the credits to go elsewhere.
“NewU Dual Academy was founded in 2025. It is a live online high school that combines grades 11 and 12 with dual-credit coursework to accelerate the path to a bachelor’s degree”
Is this accurate? If so, the first students would just be completing the high school portion now. So really there isn’t yet a track record on the success of these students completing a college degree.
It must be new. It’s still in candidate status for accreditation with MSCHE.
ETA: It’s an interesting model and may be a fit for some. I wouldn’t rule it out simply because of it’s out-of-the-box approach, but I would need to see information on graduating classes and their next steps, review the curriculum, etc. before passing judgement.
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According to the NewU web site, they graduated their first cohort in June 2025. (The university part, not the high school program… that part has just now been added, I guess.) Here is the page talking about accreditation, etc.
They also say:
- We have the team, tools, and expertise to expand nationwide.
- In the next 5-7 years, we aim to open 100+ micro campuses, serving a couple of hundred students with each campus.
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A bachelors degree in three years is very different than a bachelors degree in ONE year…which was what I understood the OP to say.
This is an important difference, as many (if not most) U.S. colleges require two years of residency to confer a degree. And it would likely take that long to complete courses in the major anyway.
I wonder what those 2025 grads are doing?
And if they only opened in 2025 (maybe that’s not correct) how would they have graduated their first class in 2025.
I think this out of the box thinking is worthy of consideration, but I would need to hear more about it.
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Note that what I read said the HS portion is a for profit model.
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It probably meant that the high school part opened in 2025? The university graduated their first class in 2025. There is a timeline on their About page if you scroll down.
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“NewU is the first 3-year bachelor’s degree college in the US. We offer shorter, affordable, career-ready programs on campus in Washington, DC.”
This isn’t a bad idea, but has been possible at a lot of colleges here for a while. Students entering with gen Ed courses or who take more than the usual courses per term have been able to graduate in three years. It sounds like this new college is making it possible for all students to graduate college in three years. Is that correct.
How does this interface with what the OP wrote about students getting a lot of college credits in their last years of high school, and only needing ONE year of college then to complete a college degree. Is this only possible at the affiliated college?
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And as a posted elsewhere, a number of traditional four-year colleges are gearing up to offer 3-year degrees, albeit in particular areas and mostly not focused at new high school graduates. Still, it may be more comforting for some students to prefer to do those at well-established state colleges.
https://www.newsobserver.com/news/local/education/article315995214.html
The links don’t all show as preview - first two reference Cal States and NC States, while the last link notes “Some states, such as Indiana, North Dakota, Massachusetts, Iowa, and Utah have approved testing, developing, or adding three-year degrees to their public colleges”
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In the real world, there is no such thing as a “college credit”, as if there was a universally fungible asset a student could take with them wherever they wished.
Every college gets to decide on their own credit policy when a student presents a transcript from another institution. Sometimes it’s a relatively simple review- student took AP European History, took the AP test, got a 5, the college accepts a 5 on AP Euro as being equivalent to one semester of their own history offerings. Other times it’s complicated- Student took Introduction to Chemistry at a community college, got a B. The university may require a placement test to determine if- in fact- the student can get chem credit for that class. But it may be the “wrong” kind of credit as you know- student wants to major in bioengineering, so that “credit” doesn’t do them any good, they need to take Freshman Chemistry intended for engineering majors, not the generic intro chem class appropriate for humanities majors who need to fulfill a distribution requirement.
In reality, doubling down (either on dual enrollments, AP’s, single class at a time without being in an enrolled degree program) and then planning on completing an actual degree in one year is very difficult to pull off. And programs that make it sound easy (“life credits” for your lived experience) are often ways of separating students from their student loans/Pell grants and not giving them an actual education in return.
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And as mentioned above, established colleges generally require at least 2 years/60 credits be taken at the college in order for it to award a degree.
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NewU still requires 120 hours to graduate. School is year round (for most AFAIK). At some schools, students can graduate in 3 years by bringing in DE credit from HS (or early college) and/or accelerating classes during college by taking a heavy load during the school year and classes in the summers. Other schools are starting to offer 90 hour bachelors degrees.
NewU’s offering is an early college model. This press release says the HS is non-profit, down towards the bottom:
I don’t know how successful NewU (or it’s early college model) will be, but it is legit. It does fit with the early movement/trend to reduce college costs by shortening the time to a bachelor’s degree.
Edit: We’ve discussed three year (and other college models) here:
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Of course, early college in itself is not new. I had a close friend who went to Simon’s Rock in the 1980s. (I think they have been around since the 1960s?)
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Yes, pretty sure Simon’s Rock was the pioneer of that model in the 60’s. Early college has never really taken off…I assume because of the growth of HS dual enrollment?
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It did not work out so well for my friend. She was fully ready to go to college (similar to people who start regular college at a young age), but apparently lots of the people at Simon’s Rock were not so ready and according to her, there was a lot of just high school type partying and so on. Eventually she ended up leaving and I guess transferring (?) to a regular college (Lewis and Clark). Nowadays, I get the sense that my kids’ generation does not party as much as kids did in the 80s, so maybe that particular downside is no longer an issue. 
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