Western Governors University Washington, an online university created by the Legislature last year, opened its virtual doors in earnest last week, when Jean Floten became its chancellor in a ceremony in Seattle.
Floten previously headed Bellevue College for more than 20 years.
WGU is a nonprofit online university founded by the governors of 19 Western states in the mid-1990s. It differs from traditional universities in several ways, and not just because it has no buildings.
The university now has an official presence in Washington, which will especially benefit students looking to transfer from the state’s two-year schools.
Floten’s first act will be to sign a transfer agreement with the state’s community colleges.
The agreement will give anyone with an associate degree from a Washington college automatic junior status, without having to claim credits for each course taken separately. This will make the transfer process easier and minimize the number of courses students have to take to get their bachelor’s degrees.
Degrees are offered in four main areas – teaching, business, information technology and nursing.
WGU is a particularly good deal for students who have finished their nursing training at a community college, said Curt Freed, Columbia Basin College’s vice president for instruction.
Those students can get their bachelor’s in just two semesters of online classes, he said. Each semester is six months long and costs about $3,000.
Other state universities charge more than $10,000 a year, and it takes more than a year to finish the degree there.
Things go quicker at WGU in part because it operates on an entirely different system than traditional universities. At just about any brick-and-mortar school, one goes to a certain number of classes for a set amount of time and takes a final exam at the end.
At WGU, students get credits based on competency, said CBC President Rich Cummins.
That means they advance through the material at their own pace, which could depend on their previous work experience.
Say someone who got an associate degree in accounting a few years ago now wants go for a bachelor’s. She worked for an accounting firm for those years and knows a lot beyond what she learned in the classroom.
That student could quickly move through her early courses at WGU, take exams whenever she felt ready and move on to the next level.
Tuition at WGU is a flat fee, which means that student could get many more credits for the same amount of money than at a university that requires sitting through material a student already knows for a whole semester.
“It’s a system that’s built for the convenience of the student rather than the convenience of the institution,” Cummins said. “To be sure, online degrees aren’t for everyone. Students need to be self-motivated, disciplined and mature.”
But that describes a lot of the slightly older students at community colleges.
“We’ve watched a lot of our evening and weekend programs fade and go to online,” Cummins said.
If you’re wondering how students can take tests online without being tempted to cheat, that’s covered. WGU uses a customized face-recognition technology to monitor students through web cameras while they take their tests, Freed said.
Interest in the online degrees is expected to come mainly from community colleges, Freed said. Columbia Basin counselors already have been trained to advise students on how to transfer to the virtual campus, he said.
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