Pasco university launches Florida’s first 93-credit bachelor's degree

More students at one Florida university will have an opportunity to earn their bachelor’s degrees in three years instead of four when the state’s first reduced-hour bachelor’s degree program launches in January.

Saint Leo University in Pasco County announced Tuesday that its new Bachelor of Business Analytics will require 93 credit hours to complete instead of the traditional 120 credit hours. The private Catholic university, founded in 1889, will be the first in Florida to offer a truncated bachelor’s program, providing students a faster route into the growing business analytics field.

The Southern Association of Colleges and Schools Commission on Colleges approved the program in September, the university says. Saint Leo estimates the streamlined curriculum will reduce the time and cost of earning a degree by nearly 25%.

“Higher education has an opportunity, and a responsibility, to examine long-standing assumptions about how a bachelor’s degree must be structured,” Bryan DePoy, provost and vice president of academic affairs at Saint Leo University, says in the release. “This program is an example of what can happen when we start with the outcomes we want for our graduates and build the curriculum around them.”

Reduced-credit and three-year bachelor’s degree programs are gaining momentum across the country, the university says, particularly in the business and computer sciences fields. Saint Leo says the new degree program is part of a university-wide effort to align undergraduate education with the needs of employers while maintaining academic quality. 

The new Bachelor of Business Analytics program was built around the skills graduates will need rather than the traditional 120-credit framework, the university says. Coursework covers data analytics, finance, economics, marketing analytics and the use of artificial intelligence in business.

“Employers told us an accredited, reduced-credit degree would not affect a candidate’s eligibility for hire and would meet their bachelor’s degree requirement,” DePoy says. “What they look for is accreditation, demonstrated competencies, and relevant experience, not the total number of credit hours.”

Saint Leo University is accredited by SACSCOC to award associate, bachelor’s, master’s, specialist, and doctoral degrees. The university will still offer its traditional 120-credit Bachelor of Science in Business Analytics degree, which debuted in fall 2026, officials say. Both programs teach students to interpret data, apply emerging technologies, and translate insights into strategic business decisions, the university says.