It sounds attractive - get qualified and start earning as a graduate in two years' time instead of three. Compressed two-year degrees where students skip the long vacations to cram three years' study into two are the latest initiative from the higher education minister Bill Rammell.
But has it been thought through?
He still has a long way to go to meet Tony Blair's target of 50% of young people in higher education and must reassure new students and their families about the £3,000 tuition fees due to come into force in England this autumn.
But the idea raises a lot of questions - and sensibly the government is piloting five different versions before going national. Will a two-year degree really have the same standing as a three or four-year one in the graduate market? The take-up of two-year foundation degrees - the replacement for the old Higher National Diploma (HND) in England - as a route to vocational skills has not been meteoric.
In Scotland HNDs have retained their popularity as stand-alone qualifications acceptable to employers and also mesh well with the four-year honours degree.
Who will want two-year courses? The private Buckingham University has been offering them for years - but their students are predominently from overseas and by definition can afford fees. An intensive course that saves on living costs is attractive for them.
But the home student from a poor family currently tends to rely on part-time work during the vacations - and increasingly during term-time - to make ends meet. Their need is often for more flexibility, blurring the full-time/part-time divide, which actually suggests longer courses.
There is also the question of who is going to teach courses that run through the summer - a question swiftly raised by the Association of University Teachers whose members regard the summer as sacred to research.
Mr Rammell has some convincing to do.
