Danine Adams has taken a few courses at a four-year university, some at a community college, and still more online while working all over the country as an investigator for the federal Bureau of Prisons—career experience that she has also been able to transform into academic credit.
A little from here. A little from there. And now Adams, who is 42, is just a few credits shy of earning a bachelor’s degree.
“I’m the whole ball of wax,” she says cheerfully: “on-campus education, community college, online classes, life experience.”
She’s also a forerunner of a new type of college student, one who doesn’t start and finish at a single brick-and-mortar campus, but picks and chooses credits toward a degree or job from a veritable buffet of education options.
These include dual-enrollment courses—college-level courses offered to students while they’re still in high school—advanced-placement programs, military or corporate training, career and life experience, and classes taught online.
“We are at or approaching a point of significant transformation where you will be able to snap modules together from a wide array of choices, or link them in ways that produce what are sometimes called stackable credentials,” says Molly Corbett Broad, president of the American Council on Education, the predominant national association of colleges and universities.
All of these alternatives to conventional higher education are growing exponentially, thanks to their flexibility and, often, considerably lower cost.
