Harvard Not Planning to Copy Yale Part-Time Degree Plan

Beginning next year. Yale University will admit part-time students, allowing them up to seven years to receive an undergraduate degree. Harvard officials said yesterday, though, that the University has no similar plans.

Students in the Yale program--who must be at least 25 years old--will take daytime classes with regular undergraduates, Yale officials announced Wednesday, adding that the older students will not be offered on-campus housing and will be expected to commute. Yale's part-time students will also not be required to choose a major, and will receive a Bachelor of Liberal Arts degree rather than a B.A. or B.S.

Harvard currently has no such program, and no intention of starting one, Michael Shinagel, director of the University's extension school, said yesterday. The extension school, which allows part-time students to take evening courses and earn a Bachelor of Liberal Arts degree, makes any program such as Yale's superfluous, Shinagel added. "For the dollar it's as good an education and a better deal," Shinagel said. Extension school courses, which are taught separately from regular Harvard courses, cost about one-fourth as much as the proposed Yale courses.