Courageous Learning: Finding a New Path through Higher Education
The true majority of American students are working-age adults.
Approximately 80% of those who need to start or finish a degree are over 25 years old, yet most institutions of higher education treat them as an afterthought. Courageous Learning offers a closer look at the needs of adult learners and provides a clear, comprehensive assessment of the adult higher education landscape.
The book features: in-depth profiles of a variety of long-established, accredited, adult-serving institutions; self-portraits of adult learners; definitions of post-traditional terms, such as ''credit by exam,'' and ''credit by assessment''; and, discussions on the major issues confronting higher education with some of the nation's most outspoken proponents for reform.
Courageous Learning underscores an urgent need to embrace a culture of lifelong learning. It is an invaluable tool for adults making the connection between learning and life success. It is also a must-have resource for educators who recognize our country's future is dependent on the ability to attract and support more courageous learners.
PRAISE FOR COURAGEOUS LEARNING
''Going back to school is one of the most important, most expensive, and most impactful decisions that many of us ever make. Yet we often have more information about a cup of coffee than about the investment we make in higher education. Hopefully, this book will help returning adults make choices that are right for them.''
--Margaret Spellings, 8th United States Secretary of Education
''...all the radical innovations mentioned in Courageous Learning are making more and more sense in this new world of digital open learning.''
--Alan Davis, President, Empire State College, Albany Times Union
''The new majority--older, part-time, over 25--say what they want out of college is convenience, good service, and financial aid that ought to be more predictable than playing the lottery. We've seen that there is an exodus of students who ordinarily would have gone into higher education moving to organizations like Phoenix. If that isn't a mark that colleges and universities are not serving their audiences, I don't know what is.''
-- Arthur Levine, Woodrow Wilson National Fellowship Foundation
''Why in the world wouldn't you reach out to students who have completed 70 or 80 credit hours and then had to drop out? Most of the time they had to drop out because life happened. Reach out to those students and give them an associates degree. Even if you have to partner with a community college because you don't have the degree-granting authority.''
-- Mark Milliron, former Deputy Director for Postsecondary Improvement, The Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation
''I was nervous about school. It had been over 20 years since I had been in college. I was afraid of the new. During my twenty years in the Navy, I had been teaching. I had been the go-to guy. But now, I would be the student, and I wasn't sure I knew how to do that again.''
-- Shannon McMillan
''When you get out of prison, there's such a stigma when you try to get a job. ''What's on your resume?'' the interviewer will ask and when you answer ''Well, I just got out of Florida State Prison, and I made furniture there'' you're not going to get a great reaction most of the time. But if you could say ''I got my degree in economics while I was incarcerated'' you might have a better shot at landing that job. Honestly, I would never have finished my degree without that two-year stint in prison.''
-- Chris Kilgus
''Because of hospice and because I went back and got my degree, the way that I look at life has changed. The whole living-life-now, pursuing-your-dreams-now idea. I kept thinking I can't do that, but then I did it, and my life completely changed. It's great to write BSN after my name.''
-- Marie Wrinn