The report notes that 62 percent of online college students decide what they are interested in studying before they decide which school to attend, which means institutions must have in place the right programs to attract students. Some of the top online degrees for the future identified by the report include:
- Bachelor’s – Computer Science
- Bachelor’s – Health Information Management
- Bachelor’s – Market Research
- Bachelor’s – Digital Marketing
- Bachelor’s and Master’s – Data Science
The alternative learning pathways for the future identified in the report include:
- Competency-Based Education (CBE)
- Massive Open Online Courses (MOOCs)
- Bootcamps and Microdegrees
- Badges
- Enterprise Partnerships
- Stackable Certificate
- “1 + 3” early college enrollment programs
- Curated Degrees
- Digital Transcripts
- Lifelong Learning
The report highlights the importance of tracking and quantifying learning, and examines the new models emerging that achieve this.
Models include:
- Curated degrees, which represent the idea that students are constantly picking up credits and experiences while they enter and exit the higher-ed system and job market. Institutions that can accept these credits and give credit for certain experiences can help these students finally earn their degree.
- Digital transcripts, which are similar to badges in that students demonstrate not what institution they attended or what courses they completed but what skills and knowledge they actually have. Digital transcripts, such as Degreed, act as a portfolio of experiences and can include things such as books read and conferences attended as well as projects completed or worked on. The idea with a digital transcript is that a degree is very valuable and represents a body of work, but it is not the complete picture of what students know or have learned in their lifetime.
- Lifelong learning, which is displayed in an idea Stanford has introduced. Within the Open Loop University, the idea of being an alumnus is banished as students would continually come back to the university at different stages of their career. Students would come back to learn a new skill or maybe even teach, depending on their experiences.
As students continue to learn both within and outside of traditional institutions of higher education, they are demanding that all of their learning be quantified for employers. In order to thrive in this evolving landscape, colleges and universities must become more flexible in their program designs and policies that verify and credential outside learning.
Growth Opportunities in Higher Education: Degrees and Alternate Pathways provides updates to findings from the “15 Online Degrees for the Future” report, published in 2014 by Learning House.
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