With student debt loan rising—which currently exceeds $30,000 on average for recent graduates—non-profit Modern States Education Alliance™ sought to address the college affordability problem.
The solution? Offering the ability for prospective students to earn college credit at no cost.
As part of the Fast Start initiative, which was first launched at Purdue University in 2020, students can enroll in courses to prepare for the College Level Examination Program (CLEP) distributed by the College Board.
Over 30 courses in subjects such as math, history, English, biology, accounting and Spanish are available online. Designed as self-paced courses taught by university professors, the average length of completion is 20 hours. Courses are flexible to fit students’ learning needs and online transcripts are available to print.
“We worked very hard to find and recruit professors who are not only experts in their field but also who would be engaging in an online format,” said David Vise, executive director of Modern States. “I know a lot of teachers were thrown into the position during COVID-19 of using Zoom and were not given the training to keep students attention online. These courses were meant to be online and available 24/7 from the start.”
Upon passing five Modern States courses and credit-bearing exams, students have guaranteed admission to Purdue.
“[Purdue] has had thousands of students across the state who have already started,” said Vise. “And this is in a year with COVID-19. So, it was not easy to get this going for them, but they’ve got a lot of students signed up.”
