It’s important to consider how shifting from traditional education to CBE will impact your school’s accreditation status and financial aid. Remember that CBE programs typically take a Course/Credit-Based Approach or the Direct Assessment Approach. Because CBE programs value competency mastery over seat time, these approaches have different viewpoints on terms/semesters and credits than traditional education. These unique perspectives make establishing accreditation and financial aid at your institution slightly different from the process you’re likely used to. This post explores these differences.
How will shifting to CBE impact accreditation?
Well, it depends on the shift you’re making. Your two options with a CBE transformation are to transform the structure of the program and, therefore, the business model OR to shift the pedagogy only. Either can be considered a CBE transformation, however, the option chosen will have implications for accreditation and financial aid.
If you’re shifting your program or institution’s structure to a Course/Credit-Based OR Direct-Assessment approach ….
You’re making a substantive change, so you’re required to report it to your regional accrediting body. A substantive change means that all the courses in your program align with the competencies you’re measuring to determine a student’s graduation eligibility, so their “seat time” has likely changed. Typically, for Credit-Based approaches, you report your change to your regional accrediting body when you offer the program for the first time. For a direct assessment approach, you start the accreditation process before implementing your program because the accreditors want to understand how you will translate competencies into credit hour equivalencies. You should also seek accreditation from the industry related to the program of study. Many industries have organizations that establish quality standards and competencies for education programs in their fields. Your regional or industry accreditor will have more information about the accreditation process on their websites.
If you’re shifting a few courses to CBE …
You’re NOT making a substantive change, so you don’t have to report it to your regional accrediting body. An important point to remember about CBE is the difference between CBE pedagogy and full CBE program implementation. The pedagogy focuses on authentic learning (i.e., what you do in the classroom directly translates to what you’ll do on the job). You can fit CBE pedagogy into your existing structure and grading schema without significantly changing how your institution or program functions.
How will my CBE approach impact financial aid?
Financial aid is typically awarded by the term or semester. If you’re using a course/credit-based approach, it will likely have minimal impact on financial aid. However, if you’re using another unit to measure completion, financial aid gets complicated but not impossible. Because direct assessment approaches typically do not follow academic terms or semesters, it may substantially impact financial aid. Think back to our discussion on credit hour equivalencies. When a direct assessment program translates competencies to credit hours, this process can determine how the work in the program translates into traditional terms, allowing students to still be eligible for financial aid.
Conclusion
This post briefly explains the basics of financial aid and accreditation in CBE programs. However, there are many other complexities to these issues. For example, CBE programs are highly customizable, so what happens if you decide to take a hybrid approach and include some elements from both direct assessment and course/credit-based approaches into your program? Make sure to research accreditation and federal and state student aid before starting your CBE development process so you can explain it to your staff and students.
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