Design-Your-Own Course/Degree Universities

I apologize if the question below has been asked previously. Please feel free to direct me to any relevant discussion elsewhere.

I am searching for Regionally Accredited Universities/Colleges like UI&U (tui.edu), Burlington College (burlingtoncollege.edu) and Goddard College (goddar.edu), which allow a student, in conjunction with a mentor, to design the study content and format of their courses and degrees. Please note this is distinguished from some Indvidualized Major/Studies Programs, in which existing courses are conglomerated to form new majors or areas of study.

Is anyone aware of other such Universities/Colleges?

 

Words are strange creatures. You might think that they have fairly specific meanings but they get used in the strangest ways. It's possible that the difference you're describing is the difference between "interdisciplinary," and "individualized" where the former is a diverse collection of pre-established courses and the latter is a set of custom designed courses. If I'm correct then you might want to check out the programs at:
(these are the "individualized" choices)
Capital U
Eastern Illinois U
Empire State
Judson College
Oklahoma City U
Skidmore College
Stephens College
Southwestern Adventist U
Union Institute
U of Wisconsin-Superior
Western Illinois U
If I'm incorrect then you can consider this to be a gentle reality-slap.
Good luck,
Jack

 

Also look at Prescott College.

I consider my Excelsior (USNY) a self designed degree since I picked all the courses that suited my purposes and also met the Excelsior requirements.

 

You can also design a degree program at Charter Oak State College. www.cosc.edu

 

..., or Thomas Edison State College (www.tesc.edu), or Excelsior College (www.excelsior.edu). COSC does offer a wide range of ways to actually earn credits, but (AFAIK) one needn't be a matriculated COSC student to use (and pay for) their services.

All three are regionally accredited.


Cordially,
Richard Kanarek

 

Props to Ian for recommending Prescott! It looks just right!

And I appreciate all of your responses so far... By the way I failed to mention that at this point I'm looking to earn an undergraduate degree. All of my research so far has been at the Undergrad level.

Jack you are correct! I was not precise enough in my terminology. At this point I'm looking for universities which offer indvidualization in course and degree construction (i.e. the concentration or major). It seems the term 'individualized' is applied separately to each depending on the program; whether or not such study is interdisciplinary also depends on the program among other things but is perhaps separate.
I have found that the term 'individualized major' or 'individualized studies' and others have been used to describe the conglomeration and completion of existing courses, whether they be through the credit-granting university, or through other colleges as in the case with Charter-State Oak or Thomas Edison State College. In both these cases and many others, it does not appear that a 'design-your-own-course' format is especially emphasized. In fact, this seems to be true for most universities you listed. Using the term 'individualized' isn't entirely inappropriate since these universities do allow and in fact require a student to design a degree plan. But this is not the desired freedom.
Some universities seem to explicitly allow learning contracts. In my view this is the closest and most expedient term to be used in place of the clunky 'design-your-own-course'. One particular college you mentioned, Empire College, which I found to be attractive, does prominently display independent studies as an acceptable means of earning credits. COSC also mentions learning contracts, but with weighty restrictions. It may be that most universities offer such contracts, but in my case I would only choose those universities which encourage their use and do so routinely.
Another route which apparently approximates a learning contract, for instance at Thomas Edison State College and many others, is the Prior Learning Assessment. But I'm not sure it would be worth my time to construct say 80 credit-hours of custom courses via the PLA, but it may be, and in fact it may be easier, since TESC is built around packaging degrees using this modality; I'm just not sure.
One possible problem with both these routes is that in some cases they require the student to approximate existing courses. This may just entirely defeat my purpose.

So far then it seems that Prescott, UI&U, Burlington and Goddard are the only colleges (I've encountered) which strictly emphasize the use of learning-contracts as the primary means of earning credit. But Empire State College offers an apparently equivalent Independent Study modality. Skidmore also seems to offer learning contracts, but I'm not sure if this can be done via distance. COSC among others (for instance University of Alabama to mention another) offer learning contracts, but with additional restrictions. Finally, as a purely speculative possibility, it might be possible to use PLA's as a vehicle for constructing credit-bearing courses, through TESC and many others.

I'm hoping people have corrections and additions to make. Does anyone have personal experience with using learning contracts extensively?

If anyone has experience using PLA's in the manner I've suggested, I'd be delighted to hear their experiences. That one might be worth another TOPIC