Serendipity35

The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Educause announced last week grants for colleges and schools positioned to create or expand "breakthrough" models of college readiness and completion. These are the latest round of Next Generation Learning Grants, valued at $5.4 million.

Breakthrough models incorporate technology to accelerate and enhance new, personalized, competency-based, blended programs, supported by business models that can sustain expansion.

“NGLC’s thirty Wave III grantees are the new-model builders. They are designing schools and college-level learning pathways that encourage access, persistence, and completion in learning environments that marry technology and close attention to students’ individual needs,” said Andrew Calkins, Deputy Director of NGLC. “They are striving to accelerate and deepen learning for today’s students, who have high expectations for engagement and personalization.”

The higher education projects will go to:

• Kentucky Community and Technical College System gets $1 million for a competency-based associate degree program. see article on Inside Higher Ed
  


• Board of Regents of the University System of Georgia - $1 million for a partnership with Columbus State University to develop an online bachelor's degree with a strong service-learning component.


• Altius Education - $300,000, to create “America’s Transfer College,” building on its Ivy Bridge College.


• Ameritas College Educational Services - $250,000, to support the development by Brandman University and University Ventures Fund of bachelor's programs aimed at Hispanic adults.


• University of Washington - $884,000, for an online undergraduate degree-completion program using MOOCs, using Coursera classes.


• Rio Salado College, $970,000, for “All Roads Lead to Student Success,” to help students in early college programs, educational service partnerships, and those seeking to obtain credit for prior learning.