Forty years after Regents College became the first in the nation to award degrees based on proof of prior learning, competency-based education, as its model became known, may finally be on the verge of federal approval.
Within days, the U.S. Department of Education is expected to approve Southern New Hampshire University’s request to award federal student aid based not on credit hours, but on a series of measured “competencies.” Several other programs are seeking recognition from regional accreditors, a prerequisite to federal approval.
Yet many college leaders and accreditors say the rules governing competency-based learning remain unclear, and they fault the Education Department for sending mixed messages about its willingness to move beyond seat time in allocating aid. They say the uncertainty is stifling innovation and discouraging more colleges from experimenting with new measures of student learning. (The department declined a request for comment.)
In an effort to clarify the rules, a group of influential foundations is planning a spring meeting on the future of competency-based programs. The goal, organizers say, is to create a “safe space” where accreditors, state regulators, department officials, and colleges can figure out ways to promote the programs, while protecting taxpayer dollars from fraud.
“We’re trying to establish a better form of communication that will make people comfortable innovating in a way that won’t open the floodgates of financial aid to any charlatan that has designs on it,” said Amy Laitinen, deputy director for higher education at the New America Foundation.
‘Waiting to Be Used’
Competency-based programs, in which students earn credit based on tests, portfolios, clinical observations, and other assessments of knowledge, are not new, though they remain relatively rare. Regents College, renamed Excelsior College in 2001, began offering an associate degree grounded in standardized tests and credit transfer in the early 1970s, as a way for veterans, homemakers, and other adults to earn credit for prior learning. A majority of the early students worked full time; many had college credits but no degree.
The model spread quickly to public colleges in Connecticut, New Jersey, and New York, and eventually spawned Western Governors University, the most celebrated competency-based program today. There are now more than 20 public and private institutions developing or delivering competency-based programs, according to a survey commissioned by the Lumina Foundation.
Over time, the programs have earned acceptance and even admiration from policy makers, who see them as key to improving college-completion rates. In 2011, U.S. Secretary of Education Arne Duncan told college financial-aid administrators that he wants institutions like Western Governors “to be the norm.” Last month the secretary praised the University of Wisconsin on Twitter, saying that it was “showing real leadership in moving from seat time to competency” and asking, “Will others follow?”
Yet for all the endorsements from the administration, true competency-based programs, like Excelsior’s associate degree in nursing, have never been eligible to receive federal student aid. That’s because the Education Department has historically treated such programs as “independent study,” learning devoid of the student-faculty interaction that undergirds the traditional credit hour.
In fact, federal law has offered aid to such programs since 2006, when lawmakers, working with Western Governors, added language to the Higher Education Act that allows colleges to award aid based on the “direct assessment” of student learning rather than on seat time.
But Western Governors never used the authority, opting to keep converting its competencies into credits, and most other colleges didn’t know about the change or assumed that it didn’t apply to them.
Paul J. LeBlanc, president of Southern New Hampshire University, said he thought it had “been written just for WGU” until last year, when he learned “that no one had, in fact, used the provision, and there was some talk about it ‘sitting there waiting to be used.’”
Mixed Messages
Part of the reason colleges hadn’t heard of the provision is that the Education Department did nothing to promote it. When Mr. LeBlanc and other college leaders began inquiring about it, leaders of the department said they would issue a “Dear Colleague” letter clarifying their position on direct assessment and competency-based learning. But the letter, which was promised last fall, still hasn’t appeared, and college leaders who’ve asked if their institutions are eligible say they’ve gotten conflicting responses.
“There’s a perception that if you ask different parts of the department, you get different answers,” said Kevin Corcoran, program director at the Lumina Foundation.
Several sources said the agency’s political leadership has been more open to experimentation than its career officials have. They attributed the latter’s skepticism to a history of abuses in online education and the recent rash of student-aid fraud uncovered by the department’s inspector general.
Take Excelsior College. Its associate-level nursing program is the nation’s largest, with 15,000 students. Employers say that it prepares students as well as traditional programs do, and that its graduates pass the national licensure exam at a rate comparable to the national average. Yet when John F. Ebersole, the college’s president, asked a career official in the Education Department in October if the competency-based program might qualify under direct assessment, he received “a very pessimistic outlook,” he said.
Meanwhile, Southern New Hampshire, the first institution to apply for aid under direct assessment, appears headed toward approval. Its accreditor, the New England Association of Schools and Colleges, signed off on the plan in September, and the department has promised a decision soon. When Mr. LeBlanc met with agency officials last month, the questions about his program were mostly technical, and “the tone was very positive and upbeat,” he said.
Ms. Laitinen said Southern New Hampshire is a “good test case” for direct assessment because it’s “a known and trusted entity.”
It’s unclear, though, how groundbreaking the New Hampshire case will be. In part, it will depend on whether the department’s decision includes guidelines that will apply to other institutions, Mr. LeBlanc said.
“I think what we’re doing will help move the ball, but I don’t know how far the ball gets moved,” he said. “A movement requires clear rules of play for everybody, and I think that’s what’s needed next.”
Search for Clarity
The “convening,” as the foundations call it, is an attempt to bring clarity and consistency to the department’s decision making.
The April meeting grew out of an October forum on innovation, where Lumina and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, along with the Kresge and Joyce Foundations, offered to provide a “neutral space” for accreditors, state regulators, and the department to talk, Mr. Corcoran said.
Mr. Ebersole said the department must be clear what the approval process is, because “right now, even the regional accreditors aren’t sure.”
“A natural reaction to that is that everyone will be conservative,” he said.
Accreditors have good reason to be cautious when it comes to competency-based education. In 2009 the department’s inspector general issued a trio of reports that criticized regional accreditors for failing to set minimum standards for program length or credit hours. The inspector general recommended that the department penalize one of them, the Higher Learning Commission of the North Central Association of Colleges and School. The agency dropped the case after the commission agreed to make changes in its processes.
So far, only New England’s accreditor has approved the addition of a competency-based program. Barbara E. Brittingham, the group’s president, said Southern New Hampshire’s proposal may have been easier to evaluate than some because it was “anchored in something traditional and not just taken from thin air.”
But there are signs that accreditors are becoming more comfortable with competency-based models in general. The six regional accreditors are working on a statement clarifying how they will evaluate the programs. Even the Higher Learning Commission, which has the most reason to be wary, is testing the waters with a pilot involving four programs, including one at Northern Arizona University.
Sylvia Manning, president of the commission, said she hoped the meeting would yield guidelines for accreditors and colleges, as well as a common vocabulary surrounding competency-based learning. The “current mush of terms"—direct assessment, competency-based, prior learning—"is not precise, and it confuses people,” she said.
“Let’s try to sort out what we’re talking about, because I don’t think people really know,” she said.
