The bill to make Western Governors University an official state university will probably pass.
Johann Neem from United Faculty of Washington Blog.
This blog has been against it for all the right reasons—that it denigrates the value and meaning of a college education, reducing college to a set of simple, easily obtained competencies. WGU’s boosters love to claim that they put student learning first, whereas traditional universities favor the interests of teachers.
We need to make clear, quite simply, that this is a lie.
Faculty at traditional universities spend the bulk of their time working with students– preparing courses, meeting with students, and evaluating their work. Most of us chose this line of work because we love to teach . And teaching today is much different than when many of today’s legislators attended college. In fact, up-to-date knowledge of how students learn, much of which comes from cognitive science, proves that teachers are more important than we thought precisely because it is extremely difficult for students to learn (see post).
WGU compares all its courses to large lecture courses– but students in four-year schools move on to small, hands-on, intense classes and labs where they work closely with faculty and complete challenging work. Upper-division courses require students to be engaged and active, and faculty to work closely with each student. This is the hallmark of higher education.
An earlier Seattle Times story suggested that the faculty union’s primary concern was job protection. While WGU’s labor model is retrograde and dangerous, and will lower quality, this is not our only concern. Brick and mortar four-year schools may benefit from WGU, because the market value of real college degrees earned by students in high-quality schools will go up relative to the flood of cheap, meaningless online degrees. In many ways, WGU offers faculty job protection because it makes more valuable what we do.
The real fraud is that WGU could give our legislature an excuse to continue to underfund pre-k-12 education. According to WGU’s president in the Seattle Times, “Most WGU students would have a hard time getting accepted into a four-year state school.” Perhaps that is because their teachers have not been given the resources to prepare them for college.
Now we believe in making college more accessible, especially to poorer and minority students. But the way to do so is to give all students access to a quality pre-k-12 education so that they graduate ready for college. Instead, Washington’s legislators have discovered a loophole. If they can make the curriculum easier, then they do not need to provide the resources for a real education! Who cares about standards and quality, when WGU will allow students ill prepared by our state’s underfunded schools into “college”?
Such a strategy is insulting to our citizens and violates the spirit of our state constitution’s promise of a real education for every child. Parents who work hard and pay taxes so that their children will have an opportunity to better themselves, will now find that the state no longer feels obliged to provide their children a quality education. Rather than improve your child’s education, the state will simply lower the bar for access. It would be funny if it were not so serious.
I will not wave of your opinion on WGU. I am a WGU student that has been to two year schools to four year schools. They use the same models and curriculum for their math and science as does any school that offers online classes. I have taken both at WGU and other Washington state colleges and Idaho colleges. Yes it uses a different model than traditional schools, but I dont feel that my experience is any different when it comes to learning.
Thank you for posting this information. As a graduate of WGU you have given me an opportunity to put my critical thinking skills to the test (Critical thinking is one of the courses taught at WGU).
You state that WGU reduces the meaning of a college education to a few simple, easily obtained competencies. That does not match my experience. My experience is that all universities have easy courses as well as hard courses. The difficulty was comparable.
As a graduate of WGU I may have become bias, therefore I looked for some outside evidence to show that WGU provides a quality education. I found it. WGU is highly accredited (http://www.wgu.edu/about_WGU/accreditation). In order to become accredited a university’s curriculum is examined closely by a team of professionals. I am confident that their evaluation is more objective than mine or yours.
You claim that WGU’s boosters love to claim that they put student learning first and that traditional universities favor the interests of teachers. I have never heard this claim. Could you provide your reference?
You said that ‘The real fraud is that WGU could give our legislature an excuse to continue to underfund pre-k-12 education’. I am assuming that you are suggesting that funding will go to WGU instead of pre-k-12 schools.
According to Wikipedia (not the best source, I am sure, but better then your opinion or mine) WGU does not receive state or federal money, they are self sustaining (information retrieved on 4/13/11 from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_Governors_University)
You state that the way to make college more accessible is to give all students access to a quality pre-k-12 education so they graduate ready for college. This may help serve students who are educationally unprepared, but what about those who are not in a financial position to attend college? What of those who live too far from a large city? What of those who have to work during regular college hours in order to support their family?
I don’t agree with your analysis. To me it sounds like you are a teacher and you are afraid of losing your job. Let me give you something to think about.
I don’t believe WGU’s model is designed to replace traditional education. Instead, I believe it is designed to supplement it. You see, they have only four types of graduates. Business, Nursing, Information Technology and Teaching. If they were trying to replace traditional education they would not be teaching people to teach in traditional institutions.
Instead of damaging the educational system in Washington by bleeding the state coffers, they will enhance the educational system by providing high quality teachers.
Not sure who Mr. Colbert is. I emailed her or him but so far no answer.
He/she is very welcome to post here.
In the meantime, it seems to me that this is a cut and paste .. the content really does not read as if it is directed at my posts.
Ed. This is one of a number of similar comments. Whether the au is actually a WGU employee or someone impersonating one, I do not know. If the author wants to reply, he or she can read my analysis of the post below.
I am employed at WGU so I can speak to both the issue of competency and student interface. Contrary to your claim, students at WGU work extremely closely with an assigned mentor. Mentors have graduate degrees and field experience in education, just as traditional faculty do. The mentor not only talks to the student on the phone at least once weekly regarding their course of study, concerns, goals, and achievements, but remains with the student throughout his/her entire degree program, building a solid personal and academic relationship. That is more attention than I ever received in a traditional college, including the “small hands-on groups” encountered during my graduate degree work. Assessment of course work is rigorous and substantiated through objective calibration practices. Evaluators (those who “grade” student work) are subject matter experts, usually possessing at least a masters, if not a PhD, as well as years of experience in the field of study. Yes, work is competency-based, which means students are evaluated on their ability to demonstrate knowledge of the subject matter in conjunction with comprehensive rubrics — which means traditional grades are not awarded. But that does not equate to incompetency or retrograde practices.
This comment is frightening. First it is full of the sort of meaningless jargon that one sees in used car ads or commercials for movies. Terms like “competency,” “objective calibration,” “comprehensive rubrics” beg for definitions and would lead any freshman English instructor to give “Faculty Member” a failing grade.
To sum up the more or less specific points:
“Faculty Member” admits that WGU uses an arbitrary pass-fail standard for graduation from college.
Based on this comment, as well as the WGU website ,it appears that WGU panels with no clear credentials set the criteria for pass fail.
It is hard to imagine that an employer would accept such WGU pass fail certificates when hiring a teacher, nurse, accountant, or IT manager.
“Faculty Member” also asserts that mentors, not subject matter experts, provide contact with the students.
Nothing here suggests that the “mentor” ever explains a difficult concept or assists a student in formulating her ideas.
As for the “evaluators” .. the claim that these are subject matter experts contradicts the web site and “Faculty Member’s” own words about objective testing and the lack of a list of credentialed faculty in the WGU website
This college was started by business leaders (Bill Gates being one) and a bi-partisan set of governors from the West. Businesses are tired of college graduates not being able to function in the real world in as a turnkey contributor. Many of these grads were coming from “traditional” colleges. They can pass a multiple point test, but can’t analyze a real world financial statement, let alone function competently in an Excel spreadsheet that is not pre-programmed for them. Brick and mortar colleges have tenured teachers whose time has come to retire and young fresh minded professors waiting for them to die because the tenured ones will not retire. That is not a system that serves anyone either. Where is the value in that kind of learning environment? Why should tuition go to a professor who doesn’t teach a class while a teacher’s aid in a PhD or master’s program teaches for nothing and still has to pay for school? What a huge waste of money; and yet, the teachers unions protest every form of reform because they are waiting for the day for that pay grade to apply to them regardless of competence. I still cannot find value in that system. It’s purely political and education has become a back burner project for the inbreeding of outmoded ideas and ways of thinking in far too many brick and mortar colleges. Do the time and get a degree. Where’s the learning or application of skills there?
Brick and mortar colleges and online colleges both have their faults. They both have their share of diploma mills and reputations to uphold. They both have been guilty of being paid and not performing, leaving students with hefty loan repayments and no job. Harvard is no panacea in education, yet families shell out tons of unnecessary funds simply for a degree from a “respected” university. They don’t rank well and haven’t for a long time. Unlike Harvard, online for profit colleges get sued and shut down for fraudulent educational claims.
I researched long and hard for a great college to complete my degree. I have a painful disability, work full time and simply do not have HOURS a week to commute to a very expensive college to take a class or two at a time and then have to find the time to study. Only to complete the last two years of my degree in 10 years – when what I have learned no longer applies in the real world. With the classes on my computer and camera and tv, I don’t have to sacrifice the environment, my physical health or a whole bunch of money to get my degree. In WGU I am confident I will have the necessary real world experience combined with a valuable degree.
College is what you make of it – regardless of where you go. When I found out the president of Bellevue College (very well respected, by the way) that lent more credibility to this university being above board. I was sold.
Step out of the dark ages. The rest of the world may very well pass you by if you don’t.
Darla,
Forgive me for being skeptical but this reads like one more canned PR piece from GWU.
If you are a “real” student please let me know, I would love to see a dialogue.
As for your message,
1. I doubt very much that Bill Gates was involved in founding WGU. I do know his foundation has given WGU grants but when asked for any materials about those grants or any measures of outcomes, the Gates Foundation refuses to answer.
2. Your comments about “traditional” colleges would be a lot easier to take if it were not true that American colleges are ranked as well above almost any others in the world. As to jobs, one of the conspicuous issues with WGU is that it does not publish statistics on whether its grads get jobs.
3. You criticize multiple point tests” .. I assume you mean multiple answer questions? Since WGU brags about not using content faculty to teach or grade, aren’t its tests multiple point?
4. I gather you do not like unions. I assume you realize most Universities do not have unions?
5. I am interested that Harvard does not rank well.
6.As for arguing that the law suits against many online schools prove reassure you of their quality … I am at a loss.
Actually, under the Americans for Disability Act, most colleges do accommodate people with disabilities and online courses are pretty easy to find for subjects where that is adequate. What are you studying at WGU?
Can someone who wants to further their education do just that without being made to feel less adequate because they choose a program that works better for their life and budget? I am due to start at WGU October 1st and already have a career as a nurse. I want to continue learning and become a more educated RN whom can help make policy changes that create safer environments for staff and patients. I respect those who choose to attend Washington State University or UW. I would love to attend either of those programs. Unfortunately I live in a rural area and it would take me over two hours to commute. I also can’t afford the steep tuition rates. I was thrilled to find a non-profit University. My nursing program, seven years ago, emphasized adult self learning. That’s exactly what this is. I know best how I learn a subject so why do I need to be told by an instructor to read certain chapters when maybe I learn better being able to be hands on. This program allows me to choose my learning style, allowing me to be more successful. Maybe be happy for those of us who can’t go the traditional route and have an option?
Angela, paragraphAngela,
Yours is one of the few emails I received from a WGU student that has a ring of authenticity.
As I understand it, going from the real world practical education of an RN, something which certainly cannot be done online, to the more bureaucratic and administrative training required for a bachelors or Masters degree in nursing.
This is very different from some of the other things WGU claims to “teach.” For example, to get a job in IT, I would assume that a employer would want to be able to turn to expert faculty members who have worked with the student and can assess her of his abilities.
That is why I have gone to such lengths to emphasize that WGU does not report the success of its graduates in gaining employment. Instead it provides anecdotal information that some employers are happy. Don’t you find this suspicious?
I honestly do not know where the nursing employers will give credibility to your eventual degree that they would give to a degree from a better established institution.
So, the first thing I want to say is GOOD LOOK! I admire your initiative and hope you will get every possible benefit you can from WGU. I hope, however, at the same time you will seek help from qualified nurses when, as I expect, you find questions that WGU’s non-professional “mentors” are not qualified to answer.
Is it just me or does this whole article come across as completely biased so that the current 4 year universities can keep their stranglehold on higher education? To me it appears that people tend to be harsh about alternatives that threaten “the way it has been done” and always want to preserve their way to try and stay superior.