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SilentDawning wrote:
I guess I don’t get the purpose of the Pathway program other than to let people who are otherwise not qualified enter BYU-I. The courses seem pretty light. What is meant by “professional skills”?
Semantics again, but it’s technically “BYU-I online”, rather than BYU-I.
(for those seeking a new or better job)”. 90% “Ability to learn new skills or knowledge”.
That last one… what does that even mean? That’s not even a sentence.
Old Timer wrote:
Although they would not get the same revenue as from their traditional tuition, the students are ones from whom they would not receive any revenue otherwise – and online courses are much cheaper to administer than on-ground courses.
I think this is the way most college eduation is leaning in the future. It just makes sense. I’d even say it would increase their revenue. Once the courses are created, there’s practically no overhead. I wouldn’t be suprised if they made more than the on campus courses, if you factor in land cost, building maintenance, teacher salaries, etc. If I were to start a university, I could choose 100% online over campus any day. It just makes sense.
I am proud of BYU and the Church for offering online college courses long before it was popular. I want to say they’ve been around since 2003? (*Edit: 1921 for “distant learning”. Impressive!). Just to be clear, it’s a
verygood thing the Church is doing. I’m so glad church members can get a cheap college eduation. I think it’s super important. Quote:Ability to learn new skills or knowledge
Confidence in learning new things is a major component of future educational and vocational success. Part of the intent is to give members an easy way to feel like they have the ability to learn in an academic setting. That really is huge, psychologically.
Also, fwiw, my father-in-law was a pioneer in “distance learning” in the BYU Continuing Education program. The LDS Church has been trying to make high school and college education possible for members without such education for at least 50 years.
Do they get some kind of a terminal credential for the Pathways program? A certificate for example? Or are they simply courses on a transcript? I want to add about the online/onsite thing. Online is powerful. Less overhead in brick and mortar, security, maintenance, flexibility in completing the course, but there are still a lot of students who survive better in a face to face environment. Much of the cost of online education is in fixed costs, except for the professor who facilitates the class. This is semi-fixed. Depending on how you pay the professor, it’s variable by class offered but then fixed from a student enrollment perspective in that class. Adding students to an existing class has no cost to the university other than the cost of getting them enrolled and IT support — and even then, there are normally fixed cost salaried people who do that enrollment (their advisors).
One solution to the high cost of onsite enrollment is to combine onsite and online students in the same class. This means you can have a lot of onsite offerings without increasing your professor cost. Just add online students to it.
I also believe that certain courses are not successful when offered online. Statistics, computer programming, math — these ones seem to need a professor who can sit next to you, look at your work, and worm their way into your brain to uncover students’ misunderstanding. Having taught all three subjects for periods of years, I know that the ways students can misunderstand these topics are diverse and nearly impossible to address in a purely online format.
All the way from not being able to comprehend the written word very well, to self-inflicted lack of confidence that blocks their understanding (all they say is “I’m not good at this” when you try to help them, and that negative self-talk needs to be addressed and blown out), to logical errors, and also poor short term memory. Very tough to address these problems in an online environment without burning out professors. With computer programming, compiler errors and problems I have never ever seen before when I code come to the surface as well. Students make choices that create the weirdest errors that are hard to predict unless you are there, with them individually, to see the history of their clicking and coding.
Anyway, that’s all I have to say about that. If a lot of them go on to get better employment or enroll in other colleges, that’s great!
I have a lot of respect for ByU and its outcomes. I think it’s partly accidental — their decision to NOT expand the university system beyond its current enrollment/facilities creates a shortage of seats given the huge demand. The uniqueness of the university — catering to a Mormon population makes it unique in the marketplace.
The affordability option (due to the church subsidy) contributes to the supply problem. This in turn creates a large supply of graduates which allows the professors to have VERY high standards. If someone doesn’t meet the standard or take their work seriously, there are two other students willing to take their place.
This allows BYU to admit strong students, who then complete their studies, and then get jobs.
For me, it means that a strong education system needs to have fewer seats than applicants, and that means open admissions goes out out the Window. There need to be alternate paths for people who can’t get in.
I see too many students who don’t take their education seriously (like Lori Loughline’s daughter Olivia Jade who went online and said “I don’t care about school” after she was admitted, fraudulently, to a decent university).
Some will cry foul that education should be available to everyone, but I believe there could be solutions…it is a different paradigm.
dande48 wrote:
90% “Ability to learn new skills or knowledge”.
Yes, I echo Curt on this. I think of it as similar to the mission of a Toastmaster club.
Quote:The mission of a Toastmasters club is to provide a mutually supportive and positive learning environment in which every individual member has the opportunity to develop oral communication and leadership skills, which in turn foster
self-confidence and personal growth.
Of course, with Toastmasters there is no path towards an accredited degree program. Toastmaster members just have to content themselves with the “self confidence and personal growth” component.
SilentDawning wrote:
Do they get some kind of a terminal credential for the Pathways program? A certificate for example? Or are they simply courses on a transcript?
Yes. The pathways program delivers a 15 credit certificate.dande48 wrote:
Old Timer wrote:
Although they would not get the same revenue as from their traditional tuition, the students are ones from whom they would not receive any revenue otherwise – and online courses are much cheaper to administer than on-ground courses.
I think this is the way most college eduation is leaning in the future. It just makes sense. I’d even say it would increase their revenue. Once the courses are created, there’s practically no overhead. I wouldn’t be suprised if they made more than the on campus courses, if you factor in land cost, building maintenance, teacher salaries, etc. If I were to start a university, I could choose 100% online over campus any day. It just makes sense.
I am proud of BYU and the Church for offering online college courses long before it was popular. I want to say they’ve been around since 2003? (*Edit: 1921 for “distant learning”. Impressive!). Just to be clear, it’s a
verygood thing the Church is doing. I’m so glad church members can get a cheap college eduation. I think it’s super important.
I think you might be surprised in the area of distance learning. It’s been around longer than most people realize, and some major players (including BYU and schools like Penn State and Thomas Edison) were pioneers in the field. The internet has made it much more convenient and accessible (as compared to even finding out about programs and snail mailing everything) but the basic way it works is not really new and has been around for over 100 years. I do have distance learning credits from BYU, all before the internet. They transferred to my Master’s program which was also a distance program before the internet (through SUNY, which now has a robust distance program across all campuses). I also have credits earned through distance learning from Penn State.
Closer to topic, BYU-I’s distance learning degree programs are far more extensive that BYU-P’s. You actually can’t earn a degree from Provo completely distance learning, but there are many options with BYU-I. Not too long ago I considered another degree, and even before Pathways (which I really wouldn’t do anyway because I have an MA+) BYU-I was very affordable compared to other universities (even the non-profit types). For some people Pathways/BYU-I is a ticket that otherwise would not get punched. (Side note/tip: State colleges in NY are free to NY residents, and the community colleges, which are under the SUNY banner, have to accept residents without tests like the SAT or even a HS diploma, although they may require you to earn HS equivalency as part of your program. It doesn’t get much more affordable than that, but you do have to establish residency. SUNY offers some top notch degrees, and there is even a SUNY component of Cornell.)
dande48 wrote:
DarkJedi wrote:
Dande I do think the credits transfer. That’s why they do it through BYU-I, they’re accredited. Of course what other school is going to put Book of Mormon classes anywhere but as an elective which probably translates to “instead of 128 credits to graduate you’ll need 130.”
I depends on the university admissions, but you’d be surprised. A lot of fundamental courses don’t transfer between universities, even as “electives”. If the new university doesn’t have a near identical course, they usually won’t accept it. BYU-I’s accreditation only means their degrees are valid, not that their individual courses will count towards a degree at another university. I’d be willing to bet the “skills” courses are far too broad to count, especially for a three credit course.
It does depend on the university and university degree requirements, and in some cases the age of the credit, but generally speaking accredited college to accredited college with similar courses (English 101, Algebra 102, History of Western Civilizations, etc.) do readily transfer and apply. Our public school has “dual credit” programs with the local community college (part of SUNY) and all of my kids’ credits (all general ed types, of course) transferred from SUNY to BYU. The Spanish credits counted as electives, but the calculus, chemistry, Englsih lit., US history, all counted as BYU gen eds just as they would have at another SUNY. Each one of my kids had over 30 credits going into BYU. I don’t think that kind of reciprocity from accredited college to accredited college is all that unusual. (In another response I pointed out that BYU distance learning credits also transferred to my SUNY MA program.)
Old Timer wrote:
Quote:Ability to learn new skills or knowledge
Confidence in learning new things is a major component of future educational and vocational success. Part of the intent is to give members an easy way to feel like they have the ability to learn in an academic setting. That really is huge, psychologically.
Yes, I know. My point is, that’s not a statistic. They claimed a statistic. It’s “Not even wrong”.
How does the certificate help them — does it waive certain entrance requirements to BYU-I or other colleges? SilentDawning wrote:
How does the certificate help them — does it waive certain entrance requirements to BYU-I or other colleges?
There are some jobs that can be had with a certificate. Also, it is my understanding that at BYU-I/Pathways the certificate counts toward an applicable associate’s degree and the associate’s counts toward the applicable bachelor’s. For example, this page looks at computer programming:
https://byupathway.lds.org/certificates-degrees/certificate?cert=computer-programming ” class=”bbcode_url”> https://byupathway.lds.org/certificates-degrees/certificate?cert=computer-programming dande48 wrote:
Yes, I know. My point is, that’s not a statistic. They claimed a statistic. It’s “Not even wrong”.
I assume that they took that statistic from survey results. As in – 55 % said they were continuing on with further educations after completing the 1 year certificate program. 40% said the certificate improved their employment situation and 90% said that the certificate program helped to give them the skills and confidence to be able to learn new things. Presumably that left 10% that did not feel that the program helped them in this way.
SilentDawning wrote:
How does the certificate help them — does it waive certain entrance requirements to BYU-I or other colleges?
I believe that a job applicant showing that they have some training and are able to start what they finish would be a benefit on many resumes (particularly for the RM demographic – young people without much job experience). There are many industry certificates that can be helpful even if not required in many situations. The American Hotel and Lodging Association has several that can help add some credentials to your hospitality work experience. Also, as DJ mentioned, it appears that this 15 credit Pathway certificate can apply towards a larger online degree at BYU-I.
Roy wrote:
I believe that a job applicant showing that they have some training and are able to start what they finish would be a benefit on many resumes (particularly for the RM demographic – young people without much job experience). There are many industry certificates that can be helpful even if not required in many situations. The American Hotel and Lodging Association has several that can help add some credentials to your hospitality work experience. Also, as DJ mentioned, it appears that this 15 credit Pathway certificate can apply towards a larger online degree at BYU-I.
Here is what I see as the benefit after doing a bit of homework…
1. The course material/objectives are a lot like Student Success Strategies courses I’ve seen first session/year students take. They basically help students learn about time management, thinking skills, budgeting, how to work in teams, etcetera — all the foundational skills necessary to be successful in college. No real technology or hard skills, simply the basic personal management skills that are necessary for college success.
2. Some of those courses/credits do transfer for BYU-I programs of study, just like student success strategies courses do.
The site wouldn’t open a page where I could “Learn More” for some reason, but I got enough to understand how it works. The cost per credit our is a good deal.
3. I can see the Pathways courses showing an employer that someone has an interest in improving themselves, and has developed skills that could be useful in a job like managing their time, critical thinking, setting and achieving goals, setting your sights on a particular career etcetera.
[attachment=0]Skills from Pathway.JPG[/attachment]
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