For alternative learning methods outside higher education, a new form of quality control and accreditation is rising.
Online courses, technological boot camps, corporate training sessions, and other non-traditional educational systems have united in an umbrella group to establish standards to give their educational offerings more respectability, according to Inside Higher Ed.
If those groups establish a respected brand for competence and quality, they can expand offerings and customers. It’s also a shrewd move as the Department of Education becomes more willing to consider alternative offerings.
“Last year the feds announced an experiment to make a small number of nonaccredited education providers eligible for federal financial aid,” Paul Fain wrote for Inside Higher Ed.
Federal education money would make their operations much more valuable. The offerings will need a college partner along with quality assurance from a third party, but the rules are an important change that has the potential to open up the higher education market. Students who need more education to pursue a career outside of the traditional higher education model, but don’t want a four-year degree, could see big gains.
That could threaten community colleges. Though they’ve received a boost with the Obama administration’s push for free community college, alternative and accredited programs could give students an out. Rather than spending two years at a community college, students could take an accredited program in programming or a skilled trade elsewhere. They could do it faster, and maybe even cheaper, than a two-year or four-year degree.
That the alternative programs would need to partner with an accredited college, though, could damper the radical possibilities. It’s unclear what could emerge, but the symbolic gesture from the Department of Education is promising.
