The magic of when institutions get it right - episode 2...

"College should be hard.  Going to college should not be."

Those words, spoken by Dr. Michael Moore, the Chief Academic and Operational Officer at eVersity (also pictured above) will forever be emblazoned in my memory.  I first heard them during a customer panel discussion I was moderating at Ellucian Live 2016.  The concept is so simple, yet so incredibly profound.  College academics should challenge a student's mind but the act of going to college should be straightforwardly simple!

eVersity is a part of the University of Arkansas system and is a 100% accredited online university. It was just starting to operate when I met Michael in early 2016, but its driving purpose was firmly established: to help working adults who started college, but did not complete, get a high quality undergraduate degree.  The Lumina Foundation estimates that over 30 million individuals fall into this category of starting college, but not earning a degree.  That's a staggering number. Just think of the dashed hopes and unfulfilled potential of these individuals...

I found eVersity's mission, and Michael's passion for it, irresistible.  I, and others at Ellucian, were so enthralled that we asked Michael to speak at a few regional and international conferences to tell the eVersity story.  I sat spellbound as each time eVeristy was further into their experiment and had new success stories to share.

I had the opportunity to catch up with Michael in Little Rock, AR on our drive back from our bicycling trip to the Texas Hill Country.

So what is the eVersity experiment?  Put very simply.  Retain the academic rigor required for a quality education, but rethink everything else to remove all the barriers that get in the way and distract their students from the academics.

One of the eVersity advisors says "our students are a flat tire away from dropping out".  Their lives are complex and fragile.  A flat tire might mean missing a shift, lost wages, an unanticipated expense, or simply a distraction away from the academics.  That realization and mindset has motivated eVersity to rethink what it means to "go to college".  Easy to say - not so easy to do.  Here are but a few examples of what this means.

Elongated terms that expect students to register for and juggle the requirements of multiple courses?  Gone...  Students take a single course at a time.  Each course lasts six weeks and there are 7 possible course opportunities per year.

Application fees?  Gone... Those few dollars could be a deterrent for some potential students.

Please provide us your transcripts?   Gone...  eVersity asks students to tell them where they went to high school and where they attended college and does all the legwork, including absorbing all fees, to obtain the appropriate transcripts.

These adaptations are incredibly meaningful to eVersity's student population where:

• The average student is 35 years old
• 66% are female
• 66% are on some form of financial aid
• 30% are African American in a state that is 15% African American
• 66% are first generation students

I was a first generation student myself.  My Mom completed high school, but my Dad was needed at home to support the family and only made it through the 8th grade.  (On a side note, my Dad is a perfect example that formal education is not an accurate measurement for intelligence.)  My parents were adamant I was going to attend college, although none of us knew what that meant.  I applied to one school, a nearby state college.  Why that school?  Because we could only afford a state school and the son of one of my favorite high school teachers went there.  I never visited the college until my freshman orientation even though it was only 60 miles from my home.  Who knew any better?

Fortunately the school I applied to was SUNY Geneseo where I was immersed in a supportive, family style environment that helped me learn how to navigate the system.  I don't know how I would have fared had I chosen to attend a larger, more complicated, more confusing, less caring institution.  I'd like to think I would have made it, but who knows....

While I may have a few things in common with the eVersity population, there's a massive, stunning difference.  After eVersity does all the legwork to obtain transcripts, their incoming students transfer in an average of 70 credit hours.  Yes, 70 credit hours!  Think about that, that's more than a typical Associates Degree requires and should qualify them to enter as Juniors.  These folks have been failed by traditional higher education.

In Michael's words: "So what is the reality for these students? To employers, these individuals are high school graduates, even though they have over 70 hours of college credit because the high school degree was the last degree they completed. When you apply for a job as a high school graduate, you earn a wage associated with that level of experience. If you have a family or you are a single parent, you may need multiple jobs to pay the bills and it’s quite possible that things like health care are a constant challenge. Bills, living paycheck to paycheck, working multiple jobs, trying to parent children and being involved in their lives – is it any wonder that it is so hard for these students to come back to school and finish the degree they are clearly capable of doing."

OK, enough of somewhat depressing background information.  It's time to turn to eVersity's inspirational results to-date.  Michael is the first to point out that these are only two years of results, and they may not be statistically significant.  Personally, I think these results are amazing but I'll let you judge for yourself...

• Course completion rate – 96% (means only 4% withdraw or drop)
• Course pass rate – 94% (“D” or better)
• Term-to-term re-enrollment rate: 84% (term is defined as a one 6 week course)
• Retention rate: 76% (defined as enrolled in 5 of 7 terms)
• Institutional g.p.a. = 3.14
• g.p.a. lift – 0.8 (g.p.a. lift is defined as the difference between the transfer g.p.a. and the eVersity g.p.a.  Interpretation – students are nearly one full letter grade (0.8 on a 4.0 scale at eVersity than they were at their prior institution)

Remember, these are not watered down courses.  They represent University of Arkansas curriculum taught by University of Arkansas faculty!

As you all know, I'm a huge advocate of Higher Education and I'm a firm believer in the lifetime benefits of a Liberal Arts education.  But, it's not a one size fits all world and we need to embrace different educational models for different student profiles.  I think eVersity is a fantastic example of what can be achieved by rethinking and challenging the norms.  It's still an experiment, but it's an incredibly well run experiment with leadership that will adjust as necessary to continually fine tune the experiment to yield maximum results.

Kudos - I can't wait to see what the future holds!