The traditional higher-education system works great for lots of students. But it forces countless others, like my nephews, to choose between two bad options: either enter a four-year bachelor’s degree program for which they are not ready, academically or emotionally; or pursue some kind of job-focused training program that, while valuable, may effectively put a ceiling on their careers.
It’s a dilemma millions of middle- and upper-middle-class families know well, but it’s even worse for working-class and poor families. At the end of the day, one of my nephew’s parents could afford to pay for a four-year degree, even if they knew a lot of the coursework would wash over their son. But for many low-income students, spending four years in school before even starting a career is not an option. That’s part of the reason why so many low-income students end up in technical training programs—not because they are not interested in earning a bachelor’s degree, but because they need to earn a decent income along the way. Many of those technical programs lead to good-paying jobs. What they don’t lead to is a bachelor’s degree. And without a B.A., there is only so far you can reasonably expect to rise in this country.
It’s been said that the bachelor degree is now the high school diploma of 30 years ago. And part of the reverence for BAs is the fact that it’s easy to weed out applicants, even if they are highly qualified for a job. Obviously, a bachelor’s degree is no guarantee of competence, but there should be alternative paths to a BA for those that lack the means to take four years off.
The secret to VLACS’ success may be that it does things differently from most virtual schools. It puts a focus on building strong student-teacher relationships. It breaks up traditional courses into specific skills and abilities, called “competencies,” that students master through a personalized blend of traditional lesson plans, offline projects and real-world experiences. Source: Inside the…
I’ve been to many conferences over the last twenty years. Mostly the speakers droned on about their topics, which were easily forgotten. Thinking back, only a few big ideas really stuck with me. These are three ideas I’ve come back to over and over again in my career. Source: The unforgettable lessons I’ve learned from 100…
Announced last November, Team Drives adds a new way to collaborate in Google Drive. Instead of sharing folders and files from your My Drive, a Team Drive is separate from your My Drive and has some capabilities that simply sharing a folder does not have. The big change with Team Drive is the addition of…
Top 3 posts of the week Sharing: 4 Reasons That Technology Might Not Be Helping Them Learn Seems to be a recurring theme, don’t do technology for technology’s sake. ⓔ Highlight the minimum and maximum cell in a Google Sheet column #gafetip #itip15 Although it’s a little tricky to set up, I use this all…
A woman may have lost a highly coveted NASA internship following a profanity-laced back-and-forth with a user on Twitter. That user? Famed former NASA engineer and current space council adviser Homer Hickam. Source: NASA internship reportedly lost after Twitter spat with Homer Hickam Yet another reminder that what you post can come back and haunt you.