The Seattle Times reports that online schools are replacing the community colleges as place to get the bachelor’s equivalent degree.
A new version of the GED is now emerging .. I call it the BGED .. Bachelor’s Graduation Equivalent Degree. Like their online high school equivalents, some of these may be for real but most seem concerned only with issuing a pass-fail certificate. I wonder, how many employers will really want to hire a graduate whose certificate comes from Western Governors University?
There is moreover, at least a hint here that Katherine Long is part of a frightening effort to promote “non profit” GWU over the profit making schools like University of Phoenix.
I contacted both, playing the role of a high school graduate looking for a teaching degree that would let me teach biology. The sales person or counselor from Phoenix was everything, carefully asking me about what I wanted to learn and telling me that they would not give me a degree in biology unless I got classroom experience in a lab and passed some advanced courses. WGU? less so. Also, the total cost of the BGED at “non profit” WGU was higher than at Phoenix.
I told both counselors the same story. I gave them a name, said I was 35, a high school graduate, a navy veteran who served as a medic. I also told them I had worked in business in a capacity where I needed to do math.
Phoenix: they suggested I go to a community college for the biology because that required hand on work in labs and personal instruction in science. If I did take online courses, other than those in teaching theory, I would have a teacher cmeptent in hbiology to talk with. Given my background, they estimated I could do this in about 2 years.
WGU: they encouraged me to do this at WGU, online. I was told, however, that I would have to first pass a course in high school algebra and go to a community college to show that I had taken a lab in “general science.” This would then entail another 4 years of courses at WGU, without teachers. Obviously, even at a lower annual tuition, WGU takes longer and costs more.
The part of the WGU time spent on “biology” is shown below:
Sample Learning Resources:
- Campbell, N. & Reece, J. (2005). Biology (7th ed.). Benjamin Cummings. ISBN-13:
- 9780805371468.
- Sackheim, G. (2004). An introduction to chemistry for biology students (8th ed.).
- Benjamin Cummings. ISBN-13: 9780805339703. Thinkwell Biology. This web-based resource includes multimedia video lectures, review, notes, interactive animations, and sample exercises.
- Labpaq: Biology. These self-contained laboratory kits include the lab manual, science equipment, specimens, supplies, and chemicals necessary to complete college laboratory experiments at home. The experiments reinforce science content and teach laboratory techniques.
- American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) online resources use multimedia and discussions to connect teachers and future teachers from around the world to cutting-edge research, classroom resources, and each other.
This is all fine and good, but it is hard to imagine how anyone can ever teach biology without: learning how to use a microscope, culturing a yeast cell, using a stethoscope to hear a heart, feeling a pulse, etc. Biology without a lab is absurd and none of these can be done by a student working on her or his own. Similarly the idea that high school algebra is adequate to teach modern biology, chemistry or physics is absurd. Biology, for example,m requires understanding some elementary statistics and enough geometry to understand how genes sort.
Read more from Katherine Long:
Washington’s community-college students are transferring to four-year colleges and universities in record numbers, but increasingly they are turning to private, for-profit schools to earn their bachelor’s degrees.
The trend highlights the growing difficulty of transferring to a state-supported four-year college or university, according to the state Higher Education Coordinating Board, which reported the results in a study released Monday.
The trend is also a concern because, according to the U.S. Department of Education, about a quarter of students at for-profit institutions default on their student loans within three years of starting to pay them — a number that suggests students at these schools pay a high price for an education that does not prepare them adequately for a career after college.
During a five-year period ending in summer 2010, the number of state students transferring from community and technical colleges to four-year colleges or universities to earn bachelor’s degrees grew 13 percent.
But the number transferring to public four-year schools in Washington increased only by about 1 percent, while the number transferring to private schools went up by almost 37 percent.
“I knew the percentage increase in the private sector was going up — I was surprised it was that much,” said Jan Ignash, deputy director of the Higher Education Coordinating Board, who helped prepare the study.
“Our concern is capacity,” she said. “The students are here — we’ve been telling them to complete their education, and they’re doing it. Now we have to find a place for them.”
Washington’s public universities still educate the majority of transfer students; more than two-thirds of community-college students transfer into a public college or university to pursue bachelor’s degrees.
And the largest destination for transfer students, the University of Washington’s Seattle campus, took about 20 percent more transfers in 2009-10 than it did in 2005-06, according to annual statistics compiled by the State Board of Community and Technical Colleges (SBCTC).
For more, see: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2014748433_transferstudents12m.html