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According to a Michael Mandel in Sept. 12th's Business Week, since 2000, college costs are up by 23% since 2000 and pay for young college grads is down 11% over the same period. How can colleges and universities justify this? We have to come to grips with the fact that costs for the students are out of control - we need to look at alternative cost models like Straighterline; we need to adopt open source textbooks and technology. Straighterline is delivering the same outcomes and content at a significantly lower cost. In my experience, the same McGraw-Hill modules are being taught at many colleges with less interaction and support. Students should not be satisfied with courses with little interaction, little support, and where faculty do not provide timely feedback. What Straighterline can't do, and the colleges can, is adopt open education resources. Straighterline needs the quality assurance and expertise at McGraw-Hill. We should be taking the lead. We should be applying our expertise to free, open source texts and lowering costs for students.
I know that there are going to be a lot of people who are mistrustful or even upset at Straighterline's model. I like the fact that they will bring people to the table talking about things like cost, authentic assessment, and online course quality. It is long overdue.
I read an article about them in eSchool News and it said they needed to get additional partner schools due to accreditation issues. Should be interesting. I agree that this could initiate some good conversation around eLearning.
ReplyDeleteI like that they are side-stepping the accreditation issues all together and letting the colleges worry about it. As long as the courses meet the outcomes, why not?
ReplyDeleteYeah, I thought it was a clever way to fly under the radar. I heard they were losing partner schools. Is that still the case?
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