The U.S. Department of Education will allow at least 40 colleges to experiment with competency-based education and prior learning assessment, granting them a waiver from certain rules that govern federal financial aid.
The department last week notified colleges that had successfully applied to participate in the latest round of “experimental sites,” which observers said is more expansive than previous ones.
“This is much more complicated than any experiment they have done,” said Amy Laitinen, deputy director of the New America Foundation's higher education program and a former official at the department and White House.
It’s still unclear how many institutions are part of the federal project, as the department will not post its public notice for a few weeks. But a group of colleges, dubbed the Competency-Based Education Network (C-BEN), collected a list of 40 institutions that have received approval. Some are not part of the Lumina-funded network, which includes colleges that either offer competency-based degrees or are working to offer them.
Read more at Inside Higher Ed: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2015/01/13/feds-move-ahead-experimental-sites-competency-based-education