ExcelinEd Chairman and former Florida Governor Jeb Bush recently praised the online learning platform, Modern States, touting its ability to both serve as an “on-ramp” to college for lower-income students and to reduce higher education costs for states.
Bush recommends that governors across the country embrace and advertise the website, founded by education entrepreneur Steve Klinsky in 2017.
Bush and Klinsky quip that they “are here to share the one thing student loan lenders don’t want you to know: There is an entire year’s worth of top-flight college education courses leading to real college credits, available for free, online right now.”
Citing the $1.3 trillion student loan crisis, the fact that college tuition has increased 71 percent over the past decade, in addition to nearly half of all students who dropped out of college last year did so because of the high cost, Governor Bush posits that innovations like Modern States are welcome and necessary.
The completely free website provides more than 30 quality online college courses to anyone with Internet access. Taking certain courses and passing the corresponding College Level Examination Program, or CLEP, exams can turn into a full year of real academic credit at more than 2,900 traditional colleges and universities.
If governors push this program and fund the $85 CLEP exam fee, Bush claims, they could lower the cost of tuition to in-state public universities by 25 percent. In comparison, a single course at a public college or university is 20 times the CLEP fee, and even more at private schools.
Bush concludes, “This is a rare opportunity for states to make a real difference and earn a real return on investment … more than half of first year college students are concerned they won’t be able to afford college without substantial aid or loans. Let’s not let another year go by before we provide them an easy way to save 25 percent on their higher education.”
