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Tag: Higher Education

  • 2U CEO: This Is A Paradigm-Shifting Moment For Higher Ed

    2U CEO: This Is A Paradigm-Shifting Moment For Higher Ed

    “This is a paradigm-shifting moment for higher ed,” says 2U CEO Chip Paucek. “You have to be intentional about it. You can do something that’s great, that students love, that’s totally engaging, and that also creates the right long-term outcome for the student. But you have to flip the classroom. Then when you go to class you’re in a really robust discussion with your fellow classmates, with your instructor, you are learning at a deeper level.”

    Chip Paucek, co-founder and CEO of 2U, discusses how the pandemic has led to a paradigm shift to engaging high-quality online learning for higher education:

    The Whole Flipped Classroom Notion Is Key To Our Success

    We started the company twelve years ago. We’ve been doing this much longer than what most schools have done online learning. I would say doing online learning well is not only possible it’s very obvious. Not only does it not have to be worse than campus instruction, something the President just said, it actually could be better. I think we’ve proven it over 12 years. You have to be intentional about it. When you do you can do something that’s great, that students love, that’s totally engaging, and that also creates the right long-term outcome for the student. But you have to flip the classroom. 

    You have to actually give students high-quality content for them to consume on their own time. A single 2U course has more video content than a season of Game of Thrones. Then when you go to class you’re in a really robust discussion with your fellow classmates, with your instructor, learning at a deeper level. That whole flipped classroom notion has been key to our success. We just passed 225,000 students so we’re doing this at a scale that most people haven’t. We hit 800,000 live classes inception to date. 

    The Great Institutions Have Embraced Online Learning

    We build a comprehensive program for a university partner that incorporates high-quality video content, interactive content, and a lot of readings. Books are still really good by the way. When you get the student from the interactive lesson into their live class it’s not just 90 minutes having somebody talk to you. You’re actually fully engaged from a pedagogy standpoint. You need to engage students. Then it’s not just when class ends you have to support students and bring them together in a way that is very possible online. 

    We did a survey with Gallup that showed 92 percent of our students said they would do it all over again. Honestly, this isn’t new. I feel like we’re all sitting here talking about it as if we all just discovered the internet. I started the company 12 years ago and you can really do something great if you just put your will towards it. We’ve got great schools from all over the world including Yale, Harvard, Syracuse, and Berkeley. They’re great institutions that have embraced it and are doing it really really well. 

    We Just Experienced A Forced Wave Of Remote Instruction

    What we all just experienced in the spring was sort of a forced wave of remote instruction that wasn’t very good but that doesn’t mean that it can’t be great. You really can do something great right if you put your mind to it. It takes real resources and that’s one of the things we’re advising our schools is to invest in high-quality online and really do something great for your students on a go-forward basis.

    It’s not easy to do this. I feel like the schools are in a real bind. None of us expected the NBA to have to cancel all of its games. Nobody’s been through this before. I feel like people that are continually dinging higher-ed forget that this is the single best path of social mobility on the planet. I got a Pell Grant to attend George Washington and it completely changed my life. So it’s not easy but it can be done. 

    This Is A Paradigm-Shifting Moment For Higher Ed

    Take our Simmons University arrangement which we announced a couple of months ago, we’re bringing them fully online for the fall, every single course, all 300 courses, and then offering that program to the world in a fully online version that’ll be at about 50 percent of the campus price. 

    Also, take our Amherst relationship. Amherst College we just announced last week is going online. Think about the prestige of that great liberal arts institution going online. This is a paradigm-shifting moment for higher ed. There is no doubt. You’re going to need to do it if you’re a university president or a provost. We’ve spoken to more university presidents and provost’s in the last four months than we had in our previous 12 years.

    2U CEO Chip Paucek: This Is A Paradigm-Shifting Moment For Higher Ed

  • Student Loan Forgiveness Options Need More Exposure

    Obtaining a college degree is essentially a necessity in the United States today. If one wants a job that is not flipping burgers or waiting tables, then one must pursue some form of higher education – whether it be a four-year public college, a private liberal arts college, a trade school, or a certification program.

    Unfortunately, students in the US cannot attend college for free (unlike many students in Europe). In fact, student loan debt in the United States reached the staggering figure of $1.2 trillion this year.

    Students are not going to stop going to college due to the costs, and costs do not show signs of decreasing anytime soon (The cost of a four-year, public institution has raised 357% over the past 30 years…). So, what is the best way to combat the rising cost of education and student loan debt?

    Those at American Student Assistance (ASA), a non-profit organization whose goal is to educate students about their debts and help them manage their repayments, believe that the best way to combat the problem, with current means, is to educate students about student loan forgiveness programs: “There needs to be more awareness about these programs,” stated Betsy Mayotte, director of regulatory compliance at ASA.

    These student loan forgiveness programs are not meant miracle programs that eliminate all debt magically, but rather programs designed to aid those who have made consistent payments for a number of years and receive a paltry salary for their work. Most of the people who qualify for the programs are those who work in the public sector, for non-profits, as teachers, and other low-paying professions.

    For those who work in a public service job, their student loan debt from the federal government will be forgiven after 120 consecutive payments and a proven history of low-pay. Teachers who work in low-income areas for a period of 5 years can also have their remaining government debt forgiven, as long as they have maintained a good payment history.

    For those who receive little to no money from their jobs, but do not work for the public sector, there are two options which will aid in repaying government loans. The first is to set-up an IBR (Income Based Repayment) schedule for one’s loans. In this repayment scheme, a person makes the largest payments they can for 25 years, after which the remaining amount will be forgiven.

    A second route toward loan forgiveness for low-income earners who first accumulated loans after October of 2007 is the Pay as You Earn program. This program works very similar to the IBR program, but one’s loans are forgiven after 20 years.

    These methods only work for those students who have borrowed money through the federal government, though. For those students who have had to borrow privately, there are yet to be any similar solutions. The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau recently released a report, however, in which they proposed an option to allow those with private loans to transfer the outstanding amount to a federal loan. Through this method, the federal government would essentially buy the loan from the private companies, which would allow the borrower to take advantage of one of the forgiveness plans mentioned above.

    The best solution would be to lower the cost of college, of course. Certain states, such as Georgia, already offer free tuition for in-state students. Other colleges, such as Adrian College (a private, liberal arts college in Michigan), have offered to help students repay their loan debts if they graduated and are unemployed or underemployed.

    Whatever the solution, one needs to be found soon. One of the many reasons the US faces a struggling economy at the current moment is due to the lack of investment and business from recent college graduates. Those who have $30,000 in college debt cannot afford to invest their money in the stock market or be entrepreneurs. Until the federal government finds a way in which to make higher education more affordable, the market of the US will become more and more stagnant.

    Image via Facebook

  • Penn State Could Lose Accreditation Over Sandusky Scandal

    Pennsylvania State University could be in danger of losing its accreditation in the wake of the Jerry Sandusky child molestation scandal.

    The Middle States Commission on Higher Education warned Penn State last week on August 8th that it does not believe the university is complying with some of its accreditation standards. According to a story in the Chicago Tribune, the commission has requested a monitoring report from Penn State and will visit the school sometime this year. The school has until September 30th to provide its report. The commission told the Chicago Tribune that it issues these warnings when a university has the chance to bring itself back into compliance.

    The commission has stated that Penn State may have violated government regulations and therefore the commission’s standards of “leadership, governance, and integrity.” The Middle States Commission of Higher Education is one of many private regional education associations that set accreditation criteria and audit institutions for compliance. According to the Chicago Tribune, if the university were to lose its accreditation, it would also lose its federal funding for research and student loans.

    As much of a wake-up call as this may be for the Penn State administration, it is unlikely that it will lose its accreditation.

    Last month Penn State was fined $60 million by the NCAA and its football program will lose ten scholarships and be ineligible for bowl games over the next four years, due to its cover-up of Jerry Sandusky’s sexual abuse of minors. The program is also on probation for five years, and has vacated all of former coach Joe Paterno’s victories from 1998-2001.

    (Photo by barcoder96 via Wikimedia Commons)

  • Adobe Holding Twitterview On CS6 And Creative Cloud

    Adobe Holding Twitterview On CS6 And Creative Cloud

    Twitterview is one of those unholy mashup of words that just shouldn’t exist. The idea behind it is noble and I like asking questions via Twitter just like anyone else, but why does it have to be called a Twitterview?

    Regardless of my years studying the AP stylebook like it was the Bible, Adobe is sticking to their use of the word “Twitterview” and I just have to suck it up. That’s because the company is holding its first ever UK Education Twitterview this Thursday. The topic will of course be on the recently unveiled Creative Suite 6 and the new Creative Cloud.

    If you need a refresher course, check out our coverage of the announcement yesterday. In short, Adobe will be launching the official CS6 software sometime in the next 30 days. The applications and creative suites bring some major changes to the table including expanded HTML5 support. With all these changes, people are going to obviously have questions.

    Adobe has the answers to all your questions and more if you join the Twitterview this Thursday, April 26, between 3:30 p.m. and 4:30 p.m. GMT. For us not in England, it starts 11:30 a.m. EST.

    For those who can make it to the Twitterview, just send your questions to @AdobeUKEdu with the hashtag #CS6. Adobe’s UK Education Manager Mark A ‘Bear will be on tap to answer all of your questions. If you can’t make it to the Twitterview, you can DM your questions in advance to the same Twitter handle and Adobe will get to them.

    Be sure to ask some really good questions. This is the perfect time to get a leg up on the new features coming to CS6. Now excuse me while I go forget the word Twitterview exists by watching a video of a giant spider eating a snake and scaring myself into amnesia.

  • Digital Textbook Sales To Reach $1 Billion

    More than 18 percent of new textbook revenue in the higher education and career education markets will come from digital textbooks by 2014, according to a new study by Xplana.

    By 2014, annual revenues form digital textbooks will surpass $1 billion. The shift in sales will cause the publishing industry to revamp the traditional textbook production processes.

    Digital-Textbook-Sales

    "Everyone wants to know when the digital textbook market for Higher Education will hit the ‘tipping point,’" says lead author Rob Reynolds, Director of Product Design and Research for Xplana.

    "Our research shows that digital textbooks will begin disrupting the market once their sales surpass 13% of print textbooks sold. Our estimates show digital textbook sales crossing that mark within five years, although it will likely happen even sooner."

    Xplana says the cost of textbooks remains the strongest determining factor in the purchase decision for most students. With digital textbooks from many publishers selling for 50 percent of print textbook prices, students will continue to turn to digital.

    Overall, the study predicts prices for digital textbooks will remain significantly lower than their print counterparts, which will continue to drive the sales of digital books.