12 Promising Non-traditional College Pathways to Attainment - Education Design Lab

We hear a lot about reinventing college and how we might better design the journey from school to work. Some students want faster or more experiential paths to prosperity, re-entry points after stop-outs or opportunities for lifelong learning. “Non-traditional pathways” is a phrase you’ll hear a lot if you hang around policy and design folks who are thinking about broadening “attainment of degrees” to include meaningful credentials that lead to career readiness. This broader college success definition is not a cop out—it’s a recognition that technology, access to micro-credentials, and access to modular learning generally are blurring the lines between vocational training, liberal arts exploration, and 21st century skill building because, increasingly, students are in a position to order all these off the menu. Lumina Foundation strategists Holly Zanville and Amber Garrison Duncan are in the thick of these designs, and the Lab caught up with them recently to help us build a list of the most promising ways that institutions, students, and third parties are piecing together non-traditional paths to meaningful credentials. http://eddesignlab.org/2016/04/12-promising-non-traditional-college-pathways-to-attainment/