The "Big 3" could become the "Big 4"

Do we know that? It doesn't seem to make sense. As the "Big 3" showed us, transfer credit is a key factor to earning degrees in this fashion.

 

I suspect so. But the idea is sooooo tasty, given how over-matched public higher education is in California. This would be a low-cost initiative that could, if managed well, lift a great deal off those other systems.

I have a nephew that complete an associate's degree while finishing high school. The program was designed to do this. Because he's going to a state university, he matriculated as a junior, right out of high school. A program like this could be used to fast-track students through to their upper-division major studies. The result would be more like the British model, where undergraduates' studies are focused on their majors, not on liberal arts. Those are presumed to be handled in secondary school. This kind of program could, if managed and integrated well, create the same outcome.

Just sayin'....

 

The word "transfer" is conspicuously absent from the bill. The bill, as written, states:

Note the use of the word "limited". If that is literally true, then the school's "mission" does not appear to include evaluation or acceptance of conventional credits from other institutions.

The only stated "goal" is for students to pass examinations. If that is literally true, then there is nothing special about conventional credits from other schools. On the contrary, "New University" would value "knowledge and skills" obtained from "any source", such as MOOCs, work experience, or public libraries. In fact, "New University" would probably encourage students to explore such alternative options instead of conventional classes, because they are cheaper.

*****

I think the idea here is "the GED goes to college". And if you go the GED route, it makes no difference how many high school credits you might have picked up in the past -- the only thing that matters is whether you pass the exams.

If this is indeed the model for "New University", then it wouldn't matter how many college credits you might have picked up over time -- the only thing that would matter is whether you pass the exams.

 

CalDog:

You're reading of this seems perfectly reasonable. But it is just as unreasonable to set up an entire system based on determining what people know--which is prior and current knowledge--without taking into account the things people have already demonstrated they know. It would be both redundant and inefficient. But this is politics, not education, so you may very well be right.

Despite the fact that a good case could be made that such an entity could save the state millions of dollars, I doubt this thing will see the light of day. It needs a not-to-be-trifled-with champion, and I have no idea who that could be. But it isn't that politician.

 

My guess is that there will be nothing to see. Here's my prediction: the bill dies a quiet death in committee, and never even gets voted on by the full Assembly. In fact, it has probably already received more attention here on degreeinfo than it will get from state legislators.

I agree.

 

The 'New University of California' name will almost certainly have to be changed. It's too similar to 'University of California'. My suggestion is 'California Open University'.

I think that if this thing ever comes to pass, it will almost certainly accept transfer credit. The text that Caldog quotes is talking about how this thing proposes to award its own credit. It doesn't seem to be addressing credit awarded elsewhere or precluding the new school from recognizing it. If there really is any concern about that, then the bill's language can be easily amended to clarify it.

The most likely candidate for that role might be California's Governor Jerry Brown.

Brown is already an ex-officio member of UC's, CSU's and the Community College systems governing boards. He's fully aware of the serious problems that these systems are facing -- tight budgets, exploding costs, relentlessly rising tuition and declining affordability. He's been pushing forcefully for some time for UC and CSU to make greater use of distance learning. What's more, he's been a vocal proponent of the so-called "MOOCs" at their board meetings. So clearly he's already in tune with the idea of awarding credit without live instruction. Brown's long been known as something of a visionary (Governor Moonbeam!) and he's been pushing hard for "outside-the-box" thinking to address the public higher education system's difficulties.

So... it's going to be very interesting to see if Brown gets behind this proposal, perhaps with amendments suggested by him, or whether he simply ignores it and lets it die. (The state's faculty unions can be counted on to lobby aggressively against it.)

 

Assemblyman Wilk's vision is for a school that has no need for traditional course-based college credit whatsoever. He has made this quite clear on his website:

So Wilk's school would allow college students to "test out" of all requirements for an associate's or bachelor's degree -- just as the GED allows students to "test out" of all requirements for a high school diploma.

At a school like this, transfer credits from conventional coursework would be optional, at best. And I would question whether Wilk's vision includes them at all. Neither AB 1306 nor any of Wilk's other statements acknowledge the possibility of credit transfer (which would obviously represent a major advantage for conventional classes over MOOCs, work experience, self study, etc.). On the contrary, all of Wilk's statements seem to put all of these options on exactly the same footing. For example:

Here's another statement from Wilks:

Doesn't say anything about certifying previous credits, does it ?

 

There is nothing there that (a) excludes recognizing prior learning via transfer credit (or portfolio assessment, military training, non-collegiate training via ACE, etc) nor (b) prevents it from being added on.

I like "California Open University." Readers and posters on this board sometimes get hung up with nontraditional school names, but I feel the more solid your career is, the less that kind of thing matters. Also, the UK has been doing quite well for about 45 years with its one very conspicuous Open University. As a graduate of the cumbersomely-named Union Institute and University, I pine for the days of "The Union Institute," or even the Union for Experimenting Colleges and Universities--in which cases most people listed the "Union Graduate School" (the Ph.D. program of UECU) instead, even though it was UECU that awarded the Ph.D.

I hope Jerry Brown would champion this. Or maybe we could get Bill Gates to move from Redmond to Redding? :smile: We could fund this thing with the money that guy loses between cushions on his couch.

 

Except for the part where Assemblyman Wilk describes his school as follows:

Not "to certify by portfolio assessment".
Not "to certify via transfer credit".
Not "to certify via life experience".

Single purpose. Certification by examination.

You think Wilk can't possibly mean that literally, and that he is really talking about a COSC or TESC or Excelsior, with multiple ways to earn credit for degrees.
But I think Wilk means exactly what he says: a single purpose, which is certification by examination.
So we disagree.

Could changes be "added on"? Of course -- that's the case with any bill. But I am discussing the actual bill in its current state, not a hypothetical one.

 

And I refer once again to the actual language of bill AB 1306:

It does not say that the mission of the university is also to include transfer credit consolidation, portfolio assessment, etc. The bill does say "limited to examinations."

The mission of the university is to issue degrees "to any person capable of passing the examinations". And it is "limited" to that role. Where does it say that the mission of the university includes issuing degrees to a person with a bunch of previous credits from other schools? Nowhere.

I think Wilk means what he says.

 

Agreed, but maybe bolting on a competency-based option to the existing upper-crust public university tier is less of a political battle.

Yeah, maybe it'd be a fast way to finish school, but that sounds like a horrifically expensive version of WGU.

 

But it's not bolting anything on to any existing public university system.

The proposed "New University of California" would have zero connection to the existing "University of California" system, except for the (deceptively) similar name.
It would be a completely separate "public university tier" (the fourth in California, after the community colleges, the Cal State system, and the UC system)

 

Awesomeeeeeeee

 

About the last thing I want to do is argue over something that doesn't exist. I'll wait until then.

 

Today's Bachelor degree has become the new High School Diploma!

 

It's being reported that Assemblyman Wilk has withdrawn the bill. In that case, it will not even get voted on by the Higher Education Committee, much less the full Assembly.

As stated previously, Wilk does not appear to be proposing a California equivalent to TESC, COSC, or Excelsior. He wants an institution that is focused exclusively on credit/degrees by examination. He hopes to reintroduce the bill next year, but the proposed school will have a more limited scope: the revised bill will call "for a pilot run only in the fields of math and computer science, where a subject competency is easier to gauge ... 'You either know that stuff or you don’t,' Wilk said. "

To me, his vision sounds exactly like a Prometric testing center, except that instead of taking a test to receive a tech-oriented "certification" from a corporation like Microsoft or Cisco, you would be taking a test to receive a tech-oriented "degree" from a university.

 

What I posted 8 days ago. I'm sure this was expected by many others, too.

 

AB1306 Followup

AB 1306 has died a quiet death in committee. It never even got voted on by the Higher Education Committee, much less the full Assembly. It received more attention on degreeinfo than it did from state legislators.

 

The reaction towards the proposed "New University of California" in the University of California and California State University systems was almost universally negative. The Daily 49er, the student newspaper at Cal State Long Beach, was particularly unimpressed: