Inside Higher Ed
October 28th, 2014
Competency-based education is going upmarket. Three brand-name, Big
Ten-affiliated institutions are now offering degrees in this emerging
form of higher education.
Yet the new programs at the University of Michigan, Purdue University
and the University of Wisconsin System are not aimed at the vast
numbers of undergraduates who come to those campuses for the traditional
college experience. They are narrow in scope, experimental and not all
The Wisconsin System’s “Flexible Option” is the most extensive and established of the programs. Its five competency-based, online credentials,
which range from a certificate to bachelor’s degrees, are designed
mostly for adult students with some college credits but no degree. And
they are offered by the system’s two-year institutions, its extension
program, and the Milwaukee campus -- not the Madison campus with the
lake and the 80,000-seat Camp Randall Stadium.