What if you could earn a degree as quickly or slowly as you can learn, regardless of whether you plodded through 80 hours in a classroom lecture?
That could be the next wave of higher education, as schools come under more pressure to cut costs while proving the value of expensive degrees and competing with the growing number of high-quality free online courses. Call it the decoupling of instruction and testing.
— Co.Exist
"Competency-based education" is the radical new initiative where students pay institutions (pending admittance) a flat, per-semester rate to attend whichever college courses they like. Degrees are awarded when a student passes a "competency" test, regardless of how many units they took or how well they performed in class.
The University of Wisconsin, one of several institutions to develop this type of educational format, is set to launch its highly scrutinized "Flex-Option" pilot program this November. The program targets adults who have yet to acquire a bachelor degree, which could mean drastically altering the demographics of higher education, as well as grade-based degree systems. The model could also help turn the process of school-degree-job on its head, as students can overstep course-requirements by using work experience to pass department tests.
The experimental option only extends to a few bachelor programs, but will certainly expand if successful. Should this apply to architecture programs, well, unpaid internships are going to get far more contentious.
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Real big truck approaching is that community colleges are gearing up to offer BA and BArch degrees perhaps within a decade. There is a lot of work being done behind the scenes.
How would you like to get a virtually free degree rather than owing $150,000 for it? Federal and State Governments are behind CC's for community reaching higher ed. Politicians love the idea. Whether or not ACSA and NAAB like it, there is a political will for it and the bureaucrats usually follow the orders.
More the economy falters, cheaper and more innovative higher education would get. Most of the archi-demia want to keep architecture elite, specially expensive private schools. It might be that many will not survive the public takeover or think they can't. Real changes at the door.
Amelia, thanks for this reporting! Very important and interesting.
@Orhan et al
in fact here in FL some community colleges were recently (last yr or two) approved to start offering 4 year degrees and have dropped "Community College" from name and just go by college.
Even more interestingly they aren't offering BAs in traditional liberal arts fields but only in professional type fields (medical degrees, business etc)..
@Orhan, I wonder if it will lead to something similar to the "Technical Architect" and "Architect" distinction in places like Italy and Spain.
I wonder how the flex-option will affect already woe-fully underpaid adjuncts?
Thanks Lian! This is very exciting -- I'm especially interested in how this could affect employment. How does an employer compare a 20-something ivy-league grad with a BA to a 40-something "Flex-option" grad,?
Thanks for writing about this! Great topic.
I'm all for reducing costs of higher education but schools will find a way to make money off people, they always do. Also, once people start graduating with these new "flex" degrees, I'm curious how employers will look at their "education". These are all really interesting ideas but they seem to be shifting the focus away from "learning" and towards "getting a piece of paper" (sorry for all the quote marks). Am I reading this right that you could just take a "competency test" and get a degree?
@Max
I think that's where the "Flex option" toes the line between education for minimum competence vs. education for growth or research. Ideally, the amount of schooling through this route is directly complementary to the amount of previous experience -- that you only pay for as much school as needed to reach the competency standard. What that standard is, I don't know, and I'm very interested to see how the standardization process is determined.
Quilian, this may lead to more community based architecture and urban design. It would certainly increase the number of architects in places there are very few, I mean the poorer neighborhoods. This is a different view from technical architect or architect, both needed and eventually merged as it does in many places.
Standards set by NAAB alone are feeding the corporate architecture industry. The licensure process mainly is based on that model plus the life and limb protection which is the base reason for controlling/regulating institutions.
Considering that architects lament the professional 'lack of respect', to paraphrase Rodney Dangerfield, it's striking to see how the architecture community could or would applaud the cheapening of the profession by expanding "architecture" programs willy-nilly. There exist already, plenty of certification programs and ancillary programs that allow people to be employed in the architectural profession without being licensed architects.
This profession is already bloated with plenty of unemployed architects and plenty of recent graduates so to propose flooding the field with more people doesn't result in better outcomes. It just hastens the downward spiral of the profession. We already have architects that are willing to work for fees so low that it essentially diminishes the value of the professional services provided.
Imagine the professional medical and law community, as a whole, supporting and accrediting every community college and for-profit colleges that wanted to churn out "doctors and lawyers". Those professions keep a tight rein on accredited programs which, right or wrong, limits the numbers of graduates entering their chosen field.
Comparing an on-line MBA program with professional programs like law, medicine or architecture isn't a realistic comparison. Taking general electives from varying programs on-line - a writing class, a history, or economics class is decidedly different than in-studio charettes or dissection classes.
For those that want to be involved with the medical community but don't have the acumen to stick with the arduous nature of medical school there are plenty of CC programs that have nursing and tech programs to fill the needs of the medical community at large. Same goes for those that don't have the stamina to stick with architecture through licensing there exists opportunities to be cad-techs, spec writers, etc. etc. that are ancillary and supporting to the profession without diminishing the professional degree.
Someone who wants to be a community based architect or urban planner will do that. I don't know that expanding licensure programs would encourage involvement. You either enjoy doing community based activities or you don't.
The design profession in general needs to do a better job in encouraging women and minorities into entering the A/E fields and sticking with it. But that is a different topic.
I can agree with expanding general higher education to be more flexible and more affordable. And I encourage learning for learning's sake regardless of degree.
CC's serve a lot of the immigrant and underprivileged communities. Your view of these people is at best patronizing as cad technicians and spec writers etc, etc...
Anything to change that you call willy nilly. What are you, great white defender of the superior race? I want to see architects coming out those communities where they are most needed and you are worried about they will take your hi end jobs? That is like saying Mexicans took all our jobs. Read what you wrote again, it smells of racial superiority.
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