Show me the money: Shifting legislative conversations about the cost of distance education

October 4, 2019.Reading time 12 minutes.

Online education can often be polarizing—some advocates champion it as higher education’s savior, bringing access and affordability to students across the globe. Others see it as the modern equivalent of a Trojan horse come to assault the quality of higher education. Questions of the quality of online education aside, one of the biggest lightening rods […]

California to Open a New Community College and Progress at the Other 114

September 30, 2019.Reading time 9 minutes.

If you could start completely from scratch, how would you design an institution of higher education? The California Community College System plans to open its 115th institution in October. And it is an interesting answer to that question. Based upon their published materials and a presentation to Online Teaching Conference in June, Calbright College, which […]

Let the DATA drive: Washington community & technical college’s journey to establish OER and Low-Cost codes

March 21, 2019.Reading time 9 minutes.

In this blog, Mark Jenkins and Boyoung Chae detail the vital benefits of using a data-driven approach in OER initiatives to promote affordability and student success for Washington’s Community and Technical Colleges. Their approach helped to meet two important goals: Meet students’ needs for learning which courses use free or “low-cost” resources, which aids them […]

Promising Practices and the Future of Dual Enrollment

August 23, 2018.Reading time 18 minutes.

A chalkboard that reads "what's next" in chalk

In our last dual enrollment post, we discussed the various types of dual enrollment courses, impact of these courses, who’s taking and offering these courses, and the pros and cons of dual enrollment. This week we’re looking at some promising practices suggested by experts in the field, how technology impacts these types of courses, what […]

An Update on Dual and Concurrent Enrollment

August 9, 2018.Reading time 15 minutes.

Many conversations in Senate Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions Committee meeting on the reauthorization of the Higher Ed Act focused on dual or concurrent enrollment. Concurrent enrollment was also in the news in the past few years when The Higher Learning Commission clarified that instructors of dual-credit courses (within the HLC’s region) are required to […]

Sweeping Changes Proposed by the Department of Education

August 3, 2018.Reading time 17 minutes.

text box reads: Be observant! Be innovative! Be Active! Your participation in this process is critical! These comment periods offer the regulated parties the ability to share their insight into the practical application of what the Department proposes before they become a final regulations.

Ready to change higher education, as we know it, in the United States? Based on two announcements from the U.S. Department of Education on July 31, Betsy DeVos and company seem poised to do so. Of most importance to our readers is a wide-ranging set of issues that are slated to be addressed in an […]

Count All Students! Outcome Measures for Non-Traditional Institutions

April 12, 2018.Reading time 21 minutes.

The Graduation Rate likely did not count 68.8% of community college students in Colorado. That’s almost 15,000 students. They are included in the new Outcome Measures.

Should we count all students when analyzing higher education, or only some of them? It’s not surprising that when you include all students, you get different results from that analysis than when you don’t. We think all students should be included. As reported in our last blog post (“Count All Students! New Outcome Measures Now […]

Count All Students! New Outcome Measures Now Include Non-Traditional Students

April 10, 2018.Reading time 14 minutes.

quote box reads: The new Department of Education's Outcome Measures includes about 60% more students in the WICHE region than does its traditional Graduation Rate.

There is new improvement to the U.S. Department of Education’s Graduation Rate statistic. And we should all be using it. Institutions with large non-traditional student enrollments (e.g.: community colleges, online colleges, inner city universities, military-serving institutions) have not been well-represented by the Department’s Graduation Rate statistic. Few of their students are included in the results […]

Fight the FoMO: Catch up on OER

October 26, 2017.Reading time 6 minutes.

Greetings from beautiful Denver, CO, where WCET Frontiers is joined by our Director of Open Policy, Tanya Spilovoy. Read on to catch up with Tanya on OER events, the Z Initiative, and how you can connect with her (either here at WCET 2017 or after). Thanks Tanya! ~Lindsey Downs, WCET Two exciting events are taking […]

Let’s Not Let Them Down – Stories from Veterans on Housing Allowance

July 24, 2017.Reading time 12 minutes.

Following up on the Housing Allowance for Veteran Distance Ed “The technology has advanced, but not the laws” says one of the veterans, Aaron Slatton, whom we spoke with this week regarding the Basic Housing Allowance reduction imposed on veterans who take classes fully online. “Simply put,” he said, “there is less benefit.” The GI […]