Likewise, the median federal financial aid borrowed by FlexPath students ($11,739) was 45 percent less than their peers in Capella’s traditional programs borrowed. That’s 59 percent less than the tuition billed to students in equivalent credit-hour programs. The median total tuition billed to FlexPath students was $10,548, according to the report. That means students complete what they can during each 12-week period, with fees ranging from $2,400 to $3,200, depending on the program and level of credential offered. “This model allows students to fit education into their lives, at the intensity level and at times that work for them.”įlexPath is based on a 12-week subscription model. “Freed from the credit hour, direct-assessment programs allow students to move more quickly through the competencies with which they are more familiar and slow down and take more time with concepts that are less familiar,” the report said. And Capella said the gains for students were made without sacrificing academic quality, and that the direct-assessment program includes the same learning outcomes (or requirements) as other credit hour-based equivalents. The median time was 42 percent faster for students in master’s programs.įlexPath students also had an overall two-year persistence rate that was 23 percent higher. That has played out for FlexPath: the report found a median time to completion for students enrolled in Capella’s direct-assessment bachelor’s programs was 59 percent faster than for their peers in equivalent, credit hour-based ones. (The university, which long ago became fully competency-based, features large doctoral programs.)Ī big assumption about direct assessment is that it would offer students the chance to progress more rapidly through degree programs by allowing them to be assessed for material they already know or can learn quickly. Another 7,000 students currently are enrolled in FlexPath, making up roughly 40 percent of Capella’s total enrollment in bachelor’s and master’s-level degree tracks. But its growth - and that of competency-based education more broadly - has been relatively modest so far, due in part to mixed messages at times from regulators.Įven so, more than 6,000 students have graduated from Capella’s FlexPath programs, according to a report the for-profit university released last week. About five other colleges have subsequently followed the lead of Capella and SNHU with approved direct-assessment programs of their own.īy focusing on assessed learning rather than requiring students to progress through academic content, direct assessment was seen by many as a potentially transformative (and controversial) challenge to traditional higher education.
Department of Education and Capella’s regional accreditor signed off on the university’s so-called FlexPath programs six years ago. Capella University and Southern New Hampshire University were the first to successfully take the plunge with direct assessment, an aggressive form of competency-based education that is untethered from the credit-hour standard.