Every private university with an online undergraduate program is saying that what they do and how they do it is differentiated from the bottom-feeder schools and mega online universities.
Reading through the latest news on Workforce Pell got me thinking about measurable differentiation. To qualify for Workforce Pell dollars, a program must have a 70% completion rate and a 70% job placement rate within 180 days of graduation. If either benchmark is missed, the program loses eligibility. That's a standard private universities have never been asked to meet in any context.
So what if a private university voluntarily applied the Workforce Pell benchmarks to its online undergraduate programs because the institution actually believed what it says about itself? Would it be hard? Ha! Yes, it would be incredibly hard for most. At a minimum you're looking down 2 years of infrastructure and investment before making any program-level claims with confidence. More compelling and necessary, you'd have to actually make the decision to hold yourself accountable to the benchmarks. Some programs wouldn't make the cut. Some administrators would fail brilliantly. Ending the programs and eliminating the positions would require a level of conviction most universities have trouble summoning.
And maybe that is precisely the point. A university that sets and enforces Workforce Pell-like benchmarks on it's online undergraduate degrees will have done something genuinely unique and differentiated. It will have aligned curriculum designers, career services, faculty, and admissions around unambiguous outcomes. It will have given employers a reason to trust its graduates.
So maybe we just forget differentiation and put our energy into accountability. Imagine what that would do for our mission.
No comments:
Post a Comment