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"In the United States, about half the people who start college don't finish, leaving 37 million Americans with some college credits but no degree. That's more than 20 percent of the working-age population. In an economy that increasingly demands workers with knowledge and skills, it is imperative that more opportunities are provided for individuals to obtain a university degree. By serving as the key link between universities and employers, InStride will facilitate partnerships that will positively impact the lives of thousands of people who will benefit from a high-quality education."

"Students who use OER find them to be accessible, relevant, and engaging. Over 60 percent of students reported that the overall quality of their learning experience in an OER course was higher in comparison to a typical, non- OER course. Though creating OER courses and degrees is time consuming, instructors in several colleges said they had made changes in instruction as a result of working with OER materials. Though few instructors made changes to their pedagogical practices specific to OER, use of these materials allowed them to align materials better with their learning goals. Instructors already using student-centered and hands-on learning strategies said that the OER materials helped what they were already doing. Several instructors also reported that students were more engaged with OER materials compared to textbooks, because they are better tailored to good pedagogy, reading materials are more relevant and interesting, and students can be more involved in the construction of the learning experience."

"JetBlue (NASDAQ: JBLU) today announced the launch of JetBlue Scholars, an innovative new program that offers crewmembers an opportunity to earn a fully accredited college degree from Thomas Edison State University, with JetBlue covering most of the cost."

""I'm a survivor of that teardown mode of the '70s and '80s, that college-for-all thing," he said. This has had the unintended consequence of helping flatten out or steadily erode the share of students taking vocational courses. In California's community colleges, for instance, it's dropped to 28 percent from 31 percent since 2000, contributing to a shortage of trained workers with more than a high school diploma but less than a bachelor's degree."

"it appears that the rise of free or low-cost online learning and professional education content is reducing the demand for some continuing-education courses offered by universities. In some cases, it may be reducing demand for executive education offerings, and even for degree programs like the traditional MBA. While individual workers remain interested in credentials-which are portable from job-to-job-companies often prefer to invest in targeted learning opportunities that relate directly to their business needs and has a clear business return on investment. "My people already have degrees, they need something more specific," says Bradley. "Academic credit is not always the selling point that universities think it is.""

All OMS CS course content will be delivered via the massive open online course (MOOC) format, with enhanced support services for students enrolled in the degree program. Those students also will pay a fraction of the cost of traditional on-campus master's programs; total tuition for the program is initially expected to be below $7,000. A pilot program, partly supported by a generous gift from AT&T, will begin in the next academic year. Initial enrollment will be limited to a few hundred students recruited from AT&T and Georgia Tech corporate affiliates.

"But how completely can online courses reproduce the college experience? Lexington writer and entrepreneur Jonathan Haber wanted to find out. This January, he set out to earn a "one-year MOOC BA." He is trying to cram about 32 courses, all free, into 2013-with enough breadth and depth to fulfill the distribution requirements for a bachelor's degree in philosophy. Already finished with his "freshman year," Haber has completed or is currently taking about a dozen classes."

Brandon, like many blue-collar millennials, is stuck on a journey to adulthood with no end in sight. His own parents, who had just high-school degrees, were married, steadily employed at the college, and homeowners well before they reached his age. But working-class kids today are growing up in a world where taken-for-granted pathways to adulthood are quickly eroding. Since the 1970s, stable blue-collar jobs have rapidly disappeared, taking family wages, pensions, and employer-subsidized health insurance along with them. Unlike their parents and grandparents, who followed a well-worn path from school to the assembly line-and from courtship to marriage to childbearing-men and women today live at home longer, spend more time in school, change jobs more frequently, and start families later.

"Starting next fall, the University of Pennsylvania will offer what it says is the first online bachelor's degree at an Ivy League college, an illustration of the growing credibility and popularity of online education."

"You'll hear a reasonable amount of discussion about "new traditional" students today. But the common assumption - in Washington at least - seems to be that they require more vocational education to fill a "skills gap," particularly in STEM or technical fields. Or that they need quicker, cheaper paths to a degree."

"What I am looking for is a stackable certification solution, which blockchain for learning or education can provide. This stackable way of organising or linking learning could enable a validated, personalized certification procedure covering both formal learning (e.g. certification, degrees, micro-credits) and informal learning (e.g. badges, skills, experiences). Practically: each learner has a learning wallet or portfolio, and you - as a learner - can add each learning step as you 'earn' it and you are issued a certificate/badge of what you learned by a learning authority/individual/group).  "

"Wherever the money is coming from, and however it is being spent, the root of the crisis in higher education (and the evidence that investment in universities may amount to a bubble) comes down to the fact that additional value has not been created to match this extra spending. Indeed, evidence from declines in the quality of students and graduates suggests that a degree may now mean less than it once did."

"Almost 25 years have passed since Chickering and Gamson offered seven principles for good instructional practices in undergraduate education. While the state of undergraduate education has evolved to some degree over that time, I think the seven principles still have a place in today's collegiate classroom. Originally written to communicate best practices for face-to-face instruction, the principles translate well to the online classroom and can help to provide guidance for those of us designing courses to be taught online."

...Just in time!! :)

"I graduated from the University of Toronto in Industrial Engineering back in 1988 and I remember how confused I was about where my career would take me when I was in the latter stages of getting my degree.  I thought providing my perspective and experience to someone who is looking for some guidance would be a nice way to give back my time. The experience has been so memorable."

"After 18 months in the darkness of beta world, Mozilla's Open Badges project stepped out into the light recently with the unveiling of Open Badges 1.0. But will the concept of organizations bestowing their own virtual endorsements for the mastery of skills hold up to critical examination from a world that, even in an information economy, demands most of its skilled workers hold a framed degree?"

"More than six million students are currently enrolled in online courses. There are now massive open online courses (MOOCs), in which universities and technology companies partner to design courses for thousands of students. Selingo also discusses how two colleges, the traditional Southern New Hampshire University and the newly developed Western Governors University (see John Gravois, "The College For-profits Should Fear," Washington Monthly, September/October 2011), are experimenting with competency-based online associate's degree programs, in which students are credited as soon as they show mastery of a subject rather than having to spend a set number of hours in class."

"It is best summed up by the mantra from the Harvard education expert Tony Wagner that the world doesn't care anymore what you know; all it cares "is what you can do with what you know." And since jobs are evolving so quickly, with so many new tools, a bachelor's degree is no longer considered an adequate proxy by employers for your ability to do a particular job - and, therefore, be hired."

Badges represent a way of acknowledging achievements or skill acquisition more granular than a college degree. The resources below provide an overview of the uses of badges and their implications for how individual accomplishments can be awarded, recognized, and shared.

"His positive view about online education was strongly supported in a new USC Dornsife/Los Angeles Times poll. Among the registered voters who participated in the survey, 59% said they agreed with the idea that increasing the number of online classes at California's public universities will make education more affordable and accessible. However, 34% expressed fears that expanding online classes will reduce access to professors, diminish the value of college degrees and not save money."

"Felder, who graduated in 2007 with a bachelor's degree in communications, reportedly exhibits a remarkable amount of devotion to the school that led him to flounder both professionally and financially, claiming that attending the university was "the best decision [he] ever made.""