California will continue to let community college students take as many credits as they wish at very low rates. Gov. Jerry Brown’s proposal to limit low-cost credits to 90 — 30 more than the minimum for a two-year degree — died in the Legislature.
Uncounted credits cost time, money
March 27, 2013 by
A third of students transfer at least once, almost always losing credits along the way. The average associate degree graduate has earned 80 credits for a degree that requires 60. Full-time students average 3.8 years to complete a two-year degree. Bachelor’s degree graduates average 136.5 credits and 4.7 years for the 120-credit, four-year degree.
Little college aid for job seekers
March 21, 2013 by
Federal college aid overwhelmingly goes to students pursuing degrees, while many seeking vocational certificates don’t qualify for aid. Taxpayers should support people who want to learn high-demand job skills — computer techs and nurse’s aides — not people who want to spend four years studying Shakespeare, argues a workforce researcher.
Students who earn credits for competency, not just “seat time,” will be eligible for federal student aid, if their college’s competency-based program is approved by accreditors.
What do transfer students want?
March 1, 2013 by
What do transfer students want? They want to get credits for their credits. Many universities reject credits earned elsewhere, even though students were told the classes would count. That raises costs and lowers the odds students will complete a degree.
Carnegie eyes replacing Carnegie unit
December 6, 2012 by
The Carnegie Unit, which measures learning based on time in class rather than actual learning, may be on the way out. The Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, which developed the measure in 1906, will study ways to measure competency.
A credit here, a credit there
December 5, 2012 by
Assembling credits from a variety of online courses, one man earned an associate degree from an accredited college for a total cost of $3,000. Courses ranged from art appreciation, music appreciation, macroeconomics and accounting to a series of Federal Emergency Management Agency courses, including Livestock in Disasters. Just a wee bit incoherent?
Also on Community College Spotlight: Smoothing the rocky road to higher education.
College credit for MOOCs?
November 15, 2012 by
If students could earn transferable credits for MOOCs (massive open online courses), the cost of higher education will go way down. The American Council on Education and Coursera, a MOOC provider, are looking for ways to translate MOOC learning into college credits, reports the New York Times.
The council’s credit evaluation process will begin early next year, using faculty teams to begin to assess how much students who successfully complete Coursera MOOCs have learned. Students who want to take the free classes for credit would have to pay a fee to take an identity-verified, proctored exam. If the faculty team deems the course worthy of academic credit, students who do well could pay for a transcript to submit to the college of their choice. Colleges are not required to accept those credits, but similar transcripts are already accepted by 2,000 United States colleges and universities for training courses offered by the military or by employers.
Coursera, founded last year by two Stanford computer professors, Daphne Koller and Andrew Ng, has 33 university partners and nearly two million students, who currently can earn certificates of completion, but not academic credit, for their work.
The Gates Foundation is funding research on using MOOCs in remedial math and writing classes.
A free remedial math MOOC is being developed by the University of Wisconsin-La Crosse, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. The six-week course will be open to high school students and adult learners who hope to avoid the remedial track and start in college-level math classes.
In a “Fast Track” pilot this summer, 38 low-scoring students took the online course. After six weeks, all but one qualified for college-level math and science courses.
Competency vs. the credit hour
October 10, 2012 by
Instead of earning credits for “seat time,” colleges are offering degrees based on showing competency – usually by doing well on a test. Southern New Hampshire University is partnering with employers on a $5,000 online, competency-based associate degree.
Connecticut’s community college presidents are worried about a new state law that lets unprepared students skip remediation and take college-level classes. Those who resist — or all 12 presidents, depending on who you believe — have been told to apply for “expedited termination” by the end of the month.
Colleges design self-paced, ‘competency’ courses
September 28, 2012 by
Community colleges are designing self-paced courses that will give credits for demonstrated competence — not “seat time.”
Also on Community College Spotlight: A bridge to trade skills.
California transfer plan helps, but not much
May 18, 2012 by
California community college students still have trouble transferring credits to state universities, despite a plan to streamline transfers.
Earning credits is a challenge, complains an honors student who hopes to transfer to Berkeley to earn a neuroscience degree. She can’t get into the science classes she needs at her community college.
Some students graduate with too many credits, paying in time and money for poor advising, poorly structured programs and unclear transfer policies.
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