Competency-Based Learning Provides Perks for Online Students

Imagine going to school in an online environment separate from any time requirements -- where you could test out of a course in a day if you proved you mastered the content.

While still rare, students increasingly have the option to do just that as more online programs embrace something called competency-based learning.

Competency-based learning allows students to work through an online course at their own pace, taking less time if they understand the material and more time if they are struggling. When students feel like they can demonstrate their knowledge or "competencies," they take a test or complete a project to show their mastery.

Western Governors University, perhaps the most well-known of the competency-based programs, has been around since the late 1990s. But in recent years, other schools have announced similar programs -- Capella University, Southern New Hampshire University, the University of Wisconsin and Northern Arizona University among them.

While not all students are a perfect fit for competency-based learning, the approach can help many earn a degree faster and more cheaply, experts say.

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"We have so many Americans -- something like 36 million -- who started their postsecondary education but didn't finish," says Cathy Sandeen, vice president for education attainment and innovation at the American Council on Education. "These programs are perfect for those people because they give credit for prior learning. I think they're emerging in part because we have such a need in the country to serve that segment of students."

In competency-based learning programs, students typically pay a set fee for a certain amount of time and then are allowed to finish as many courses or units as they can, experts say. At Western Governors University, for example, students pay about $3,000 per a six-month period, during which time they can take as many courses as they'd like.

"It's like an all-you-can-eat buffet, " says Kristian Sevison, a Maryland resident earning his bachelor's in business management at the school.

Sevison, a father who works for a company that tracks employee time and attendance, says he pursued a competency-based program because of the cost savings.

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"I look at things from an economical standpoint," he says. "It's not easy to come by dollars these days."

Advocates of competency-based programs say they allow students not only to save money, but to save another precious commodity -- time.

"Who wants to sit through classes when you already know the stuff?" says Robert Mendenhall, president of Western Governor's University. "It makes it more relevant to the student because they can demonstrate what they know and spend their time learning what they don't know."

Nichele Pollock, a 25-year-old enrolled in Northern Arizona University's competency-based program, says the time savings aspect of her program was the biggest draw for her.

She'd been taking college courses since she graduated from high school, while working, and was frustrated with the time it was taking her to earn a degree.

"For me, sitting in a brick-and-mortar class was too time-consuming and this allowed me to apply my knowledge at a pace that was much faster," says Pollock, who lives in Tucson, Arizona and works as a clinical research coordinator at a medical research facility.

With competency-based learning, she was able to earn somewhere between 30 and 40 credits in a six-month span, she says.

While competency-based learning might be a great fit for students like Pollock, it's not for everyone, experts say.

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"If you have 10 years of work experience than you know a whole lot more than the kid coming out of high school," Mendenhall says. "The more you know up front and can demonstrate the bigger advantage this model is to you because you'll get through faster and cheaper."

Students also need to be comfortable taking an independent approach to learning. While online education requires a certain amount of self-discipline, competency-based learning may require even more, experts say.

Faculty typically have a different role in competency-based programs than in a more traditional classroom setting, says Dorothy Wax, associate vice president for operations at the Council for Adult and Experiential Learning. They don't lead courses, but rather serve as mentors or points of contact when students have content-related questions.

Since students aren't part of any cohort, interaction with others is limited, Wax says. "You really do have to be motivated," she says. "These are not for people who need to be pushed a lot. Faculty mentors help with that -- but if you want to do this type of program, you have to be motivated or it could cost you more in the long run.

Since some of the newest competency-based programs are awarding transcripts that track competencies and not traditional academic credit, Wax recommends students ask a few questions before they enroll in a program. Students should know whether the program's credits will transfer to other schools and whether graduate schools will recognize the program's degree, she says.

"There hasn't been a lot of conversations among institutions or the regional accreditors as to how this is going to work, so that's something that really needs to be worked out," she says.

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Devon Haynie is an education reporter at U.S. News, covering online education. You can follow her on Twitter or email her at dhaynie@usnews.com.