Almost a year has passed since Eduventures published Deconstructing CBE: An Assessment of Institutional Activity, Goals and Challenges in Higher Education, the first of three reports exploring the prospects for broader adoption of competency-based education (CBE). As we publish our second annual report, Deconstructing CBE: Portraits of Institutional Practice, the outlook for CBE remains mixed.
Despite the compelling logic of liberating learning from seat time, and of recognizing the value of work and life experiences, most higher education CBE programs remain nascent, highly localized and of limited size. Apparently, quick and easy solutions for the CBE Rubik’s cube remain elusive on most U.S. campuses. But, as is the case with the beloved puzzle, some efforts to “solve” CBE continue to attract a wide range of players while others may be headed to the sidelines.
Here are some positive and less-than-positive CBE developments since the beginning of 2017:
Deconstructing CBE: Portraits of Institutional Practice Eduventures, Ellucian, and the American Council on Education (ACE) have teamed up for their second annual review of competency based education.
- Several well-known and established providers of CBE programming have reported positive growth:
- Capella University grew its FlexPath program to over 4,000 students;
- University of Wisconsin’s Flexible Options program grew to 1,300 students, a 42% annual increase;
- Southern New Hampshire University’s College for America has reorganized in anticipation of doubling its enrollment to nearly 11,000 by 2018;
- CBE powerhouse Western Governors University now enrolls about 80,000 students, and reported an 18% increase in graduates between 2015 and 2016.
- In February, Ellucian decided to sunset its CBE product, Brainstorm, after limited market growth. According to Ellucian, prospects for large-scale adoptions of CBE appeared to be more remote than earlier forecasts.
- In April, Brandman University, acquired Sagence Learning, an LMS marketed as a full suite CBE solution. A review of tax data and business analytics suggests that despite raising significant capital and launching an aggressive marketing campaign, Sagence ran into some stiff market headwinds.
- In May, the go-to organization promoting CBE, C-BEN, released a set of quality and performance standards. In June, C-BEN announced it was offering a tiered membership structure ranging from $500 – $10,000 for any institution wishing to join the 30 existing invited members.
- Despite a season of political discord, a bipartisan bill supporting research and development of new CBE programs was introduced in the House of Representatives in early June, co-sponsored by Republican Luke Messer of Indiana, and Democrat Jarid Polis of Colorado. H.R. 2859 – The Advancing Competency-Based Education Act of 2017 is the first such effort since the failure of a similar 2014 bill that passed the House but died in the Senate. Although the odds for passage are slim, H.R. 2859 would allocate $5M to fund up to 100 new CBE programs. As of late July, the bill had attracted nine additional Democrat cosponsors.
Evidence from Eduventures’ 2017 CBE Research
What does the future hold for CBE? For most schools, will it remain an unsolvable puzzle? Eduventures’ 2017 report highlights seven schools where CBE has evolved beyond an experimental phase but remains quite small scale to date. With the exception of one wholly online school, these portraits explore CBE at the program and course level. These portraits may resonate with the typical rather than exceptional school. Rather than focus only on programs that have been successful from their inception, we’ve shed light on how administrators, program directors, faculty, and in some cases students, have conspired to solve the CBE Rubik’s cube. Deconstructing CBE: Portraits of Institutional Practice features the following schools:- New Charter University
- Lipscomb University
- Texas A&M University-Commerce
- Valdosta State University
- Thomas Edison State University
- Kirkwood Community College
- Salt Lake Community College