I decided to take Chris up on his idea to post about our colleges on the blog. I just finished my paper and I would like to provide a gist of how my college looks like. Basically, the idea I had is to make a college where I would be able to provide a good education to good people who are good at taking college courses while still in high school. I borrow the term “One World Schoolhouse” from Salman Khan and his book “The One World Schoolhouse: Education Reimagined” that I read a few years ago.
My admissions system uses recommendations, college courses from my college whose finals people can take for credit (the more you take and pass with at least a B, the higher chance you can get in), and uses grades for a general sense of who a person is (placing more emphasis on the trend of the grades than the actual grades itself).
The main reason why my college is different is that I choose to livestream all lectures online for everyone to watch. Think of it as like a YouTube partner program where professors garner the profits of how many people tune in to watch his or her course. These lectures are also used for analytical purposes to improve instruction. My college also has time-restricted credit requirements (you have four years to complete all 120 credits and you can complete any number of courses beyond the 120 credit requirement so long as it is within four years), proportionally allocated funding based on grades (you get merit aid based on your GPA, so 4.0 = full tuition covered; a description of which is provided on one of my other blog posts located here) in conjunction with need-based aid, and other interesting tidbits. I chose the aid system primarily to appeal to international students trying to get an education in the U.S. without getting into crushing debt. People from around the world are admitted based on their academic qualifications and character and though international students may not qualify for need-based aid, they still get merit aid based on their performance in terms of GPA. To supplement the GPA, I use the LSAC system of grading where an A+ acts as a buffer for the grade so that it refunds a portion of the tuition based on your GPA. Get enough A+ grades and you can actually profit off your education! I also have college-wide extra credit opportunities where students can participate in an internship, volunteer, or do other off-campus things to get their grades for a course augmented and have a portion of their tuition refunded. There are some innovative aspects here and I like where my college has been going so far so if you guys have any questions about additional things, feel free to ask and point out any problems I might have. This post is mainly to showcase my idea for a college and I look forward to any feedback I get.
Have a good summer guys!
Asif,
I really like your ideas! They’re super innovative! The part that I really like is making a profit off of your education with those A+ grades. I think that really gives people an incentive to learn. I personally do better when I know that there is a possibility for reward in the end.
I took a different approach with my college. I thought about the things that I really disliked about our current system and tweaked them when constructing my own institution. I created a place that I would love to go to! One thing that I spoke about was professors and how I would make tenure based off of their teaching prowess as opposed to their research history. So, I built off of the traditional system, but I made it better (at least in my opinion I did!)
Anyway, have a great summer!