“They wanted things by credit hours, they wanted a spring semester and a fall semester and deadlines for enrollment,” he told me. He wanted to charge students a fixed price for the course, since they’d be taking as much time as they needed, but the university wanted to charge for semesters and have differences for in-state and out-of-state students and to be able to impose tuition increases.

Most schools also have little financial incentive to structure themselves like WGU. If students can pass out of competencies and finish their degrees in just a few years, the college doesn’t earn as much money.

“If you’re certifying learning that they’ve done somewhere else, that doesn’t help you get money for learning that’s done on your campus,” Josh Wyner, the executive director of the College Excellence Program at the Aspen Institute, told me.

But schools like WGU also have no interest in completely replacing traditional colleges. WGU’s goal, Mendenhall told me, is to serve the students who can’t afford traditional colleges, or who don’t have schedules that would fit into the traditional college format. Just 66 percent of people who graduate from high school enroll in college the following fall, a recent study showed. And just 56 percent of students who embark on a bachelor’s degree program finish within six years, according to a 2011 study.

“The American our college system works fine for 20 or 30 percent of the population,” Mendenhall said. “But what are we doing about the other 60 percent?”

It might be difficult for competency-based programs to scale anyway. Since they are so focused on the relationship between a student and a mentor, the more students that enroll, the more mentors are needed, which can get costly.

Nevertheless, it’s a good sign that some universities are thinking about new ways to educate students, some of which are derived from the competency-based model. The competency-based takeaway of allowing students to bypass courses they already know, if they show familiarity, is being implemented at places like the University of Central Florida, which is making it easier for students to transfer community college credits to four-year degree-granting programs, saving time and money.

More schools are thinking about what they want their students to get out of a degree. And many schools are moving to incorporate an online-delivery model to serve students who live elsewhere.

“One of the great strengths of American higher education is diversity, and that will continue to be the case,” Merisotis told me. “But this model of education is not likely to endure for decades longer. We’re on the cusp of an evolution.”

This is a relief for people such as Daniella Kippnick. Her husband is from Germany, and whenever she looks at the contrast between the European education system and the American one, she feels frustrated with the lack of progress here. In Europe many universities are free, or cost very little. Kippnick’s husband actually got paid to attend school, because he got good grades.

It heartens Kippnick to think that her sons will be able to choose their own path, whether it be a German university, an American university, or an online school like WGU. One of the triplets wants to be a veterinarian, which Kippnick knows could be challenging to do online. But, she says, hopefully, in 10 years when he’s ready to go to school, he’ll have more options about how and where he learns whatever subject he chooses.

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