The key paragraph:<p><i>"WGU’s answer to the status quo is to offer a degree that is based on competency rather than time. By gathering information from employers, industry experts, and academics, Western Governors formulates a detailed, institution- wide sense of what every graduate of a given degree program needs to know. Then they work backward from there, defining what every student who has taken a given course needs to know. As they go, they design assessments—tests—of all those competencies. “Essentially,” says Kevin Kinser, a professor of education at the State University of New York at Albany, “they’re creating a bar exam for each point along the way that leads to a degree.”"</i>
The one they should really worry about is Khan Academy:<p>1. Free<p>2. Gamification of learning (aka certification)<p>3. Social web integrated into learning (a network to see your certifications)<p>4. Inverting the traditional model - do your homework in class watch vids/read at night at home.<p>KA is on the way toward replacing traditional degrees the same way Stackoverflow and Github are replacing traditional resumes.
The 30% profit margin University of Phoenix makes is a signal to other investors to enter the field and innovate! This is a feature not a bug of markets. Non-profit just means they are maximizing more opaque measures of success. Of course the accreditation barriers to entry are still quite innovation stifling.<p>also, I'd be shocked if WGU doesn't come under fire for 'disparate impact', otherwise known as racism at some point.
FTA: <i>Those fixed standards enable a world of variation. At Western Governors, students aren’t asked to sit in a class any longer than it takes for them to demonstrate that they have mastered the material. In fact, they aren’t asked to sit in a “class” at all.</i><p>This article seems to suggest that at other US universities, you actually have to show up to classes to pass them? Is that actually the case????
WGU consists of 4 colleges: Teachers', Business, IT, and Health Professions. All well and good but I wish quality online programs were also offered in Math, Natural Sciences, Biological Sciences, Computer Science, Writing,
Humanities, etc... In my view a good College of Arts and Sciences is what makes University good. A great Engineering program would be awesome too.
Seneca College in Toronto has a similar thing going for its Computer Programming diploma. Or at least, this was the case when I went there:<p>1) You can take an exam for a class at the beginning of the semester if you think you know the material. There is a cost of this exam, but if you pass, then you save money on taking the whole class... and time too.<p>2) You must complete every single assignment to pass a given class. Your assignments must work 100%. You'll be graded on style.<p>3) Every class was offered every semester - even during the summer semester. And there was a section for most classes at night.<p>There's just one issue:
I thought universities were supposed to teach you how to learn, while community colleges were meant for specific job-related skills.<p>Shouldn't doctors, lawyers, nurses, computer programmers etc... all be getting their job-specific diplomas, just like the mechanics and the electricians? And shouldn't 'degrees' be more research oriented anyway? Why are degrees more valued when whats needed in most cases is someone with a specific skill? Do people with degrees really think that people with diplomas are incapable of learning? Do employers feel this way?
single page: <a href="http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/septemberoctober_2011/features/the_college_forprofits_should031640.php?page=all&print=true" rel="nofollow">http://www.washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/septemberoctober_2...</a>
I took a bachelors from WGU because I dropped out of college many years ago and went out of the country. I came back and just wanted one to say I had a bachelors. I can say I practically learned nothing from WGU and the coursework was incredibly easy. This is for the IT degree. To be fair to them, most courses were IT certifications. So the real problem was the IT certifications were useless, I mean really, what use is Security+ and related certs. Anyway that is my opinion. I did some IT admin work first, then got more into programming with Ruby on Rails. Probably my path is a bit atypical.
I found this article really interesting, Read all the way through it on my phone and made sure to come online to comment.<p>I have to find myself agreeing that the competency based off of actual employers is one of the best way to get stuff done. And now if KA can get actual teachers and setup actual accreditation systems then all these for-profit groups will be under even more pressure. As people that want these services to thrive I feel the best way for us to allow this to happen is to help them market their schools. Blog posts etc etc that link to the site will hopefully make a google search for "online college" send WGU and Khan to the top.<p>I for one may be signing up. (I already attend Khan to learn about linear algebra.) Having a business degree from WGU would round out my current repertoire rather nicely I think.