ACE Plan for Unbundling First Year of Baccalaureate - Paul Fain, Inside Higher Ed

The American Council on Education has announced the creation of a pool of about 100 online courses that will lead to credit recommendations. The courses will be low-cost or free. The council plans to partner with about 50 institutions that will agree to issue credit for the course recommendations. The idea is for students to be able to enroll in those colleges with up to two years of transfer credits from the pool of courses under their belts. “This really will support the degree-completion programs at institutions,” said Cathy Sandeen, ACE’s vice president for education attainment and innovation. The courses could come from any college, as long as they are low-cost and meet the council’s criteria. That might include offerings from adult-focused institutions, like Excelsior College. But ACE also is opening up the pool to non-accredited, non-institutional providers. Among that group, the council has had preliminary conversations with StraighterLine and the Saylor Academy, Sandeen said. MOOC providers might be part of the mix. But she said they would likely be of the on-demand variety, rather than MOOCs that are on a set schedule. She cited a few Coursera offerings from the University of California at Irvine as possibilities. https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/09/11/ace-will-create-pool-100-low-cost-courses-some-non-college-providers