CBS News

School honors mother of three who earned her college degree while homeless

Crystal Allenton returned to her alma mater, WGU Washington, this week, more than five years after she received her bachelor's degree from the school.

Forbes

Forgive Us Our Debts: The Racial Inequity At The Root Of The Student Loan Crisis

The “student debt crisis” is not a monolith; it masks a range of underlying dynamics.

WorkingNation

The digital divide is disenfranchising jobseekers and students

“The internet is no longer this perceived privilege, or some convenience, it is truly fundamental to one’s quality of life and our society at large. The internet has become this new superhighway connecting businesses, and health care, and education, and students.”

Utah Business

2021 Corporate Counsel Honorees

As outside counsel, attorneys help companies solve specific problems. But as in-house counsel, attorneys have the opportunity to help their companies develop short-term goals and long-term strategies.

Forbes

Real Help For Student Loan Borrowers (Outside Of Praying For Loan Forgiveness)

There have been plenty of rumors regarding federal student loan forgiveness, as well as several different plans that could bring this type of plan to fruition — at least for some.

Higher Ed Dive

How 3 megauniversities think local to aid students during natural disasters

Western Governors, Grand Canyon and Southern New Hampshire are using their scale to help students cope with crises in their communities.

The Journal of Competency-Based Education

Enabling pathways to opportunity through a skills‐based architecture

Inside Higher Ed

Colleges, McKinsey and Strada Start Task Force on Higher Education and Opportunity

The leaders of three dozen colleges and universities plus global consulting giant McKinsey & Co. and Strada Education Network, a nonprofit focused on the education-to-employment pipeline, announced a new group Monday called the Taskforce on Higher Education and Opportunity.

Christensen Institute

Scott Pulsipher reveals how being deliberate in nurturing connections can pave pathways never previously imagined

At WGU, our mission is to create pathways to opportunity, whether that be your first opportunity, your next opportunity, or the one after that.

Forbes

New Report Shows The Success Of WGU Academy’s College Readiness Program

A new study shows that an online college readiness program is effective in helping college students make better academic progress in their first year of study.

Strada Education Network

How to Make Online Ed Work for Students

Can the pandemic induce higher education to jump-start the future of learning?

Higher Ed Dive

3 ways the pandemic is changing colleges' mandate right now

The health crisis is accelerating the need to cater to adult students and unbundle degrees, college officials said during last week's virtual SXSW EDU conference.

Campus Technology

6 Ways COVID-19 and Social Justice Intersect in Higher Ed

Financial pressures, political unrest, health concerns — here's how the pandemic and concurrent equity challenges have impacted both institutions and their students.

Washington Monthly

What’s Missing from the American Rescue Plan

We still need reform and funding for the federal government’s crazy quilt of job training and career assistance programs.

The Washington Post

Opinion: Virginia’s incarcerated can now receive Pell Grants. It will benefit everyone.

Amid a presidential transition and covid-19 relief efforts, recent legislation has brought about a monumental, generation-defining shift to help incarcerated people successfully reenter society.

Deseret News

370K Utahns have some college, no degree; this proposal aims to help some finish what they started

Adult learners grant program could make college completion accessible, affordable

Forbes

Elite Universities Should Enroll A Million Students

What would a Harvard of a million students look like? Have you ever wondered?

Topcoder

Making 2021 the Year of Reskilling

Reskilling was a major topic in 2019, and it’s re-emerging as we get back to work in 2021.

The Hechinger Report

Why is it so hard for workers to find new jobs?

Saeed Shareef badly wanted to get out of the restaurant industry.

Forbes

Does Biden’s Vision On Loan Forgiveness Go Far Enough?

In Peter Drucker’s famous phrasing, customers don’t want a quarter inch drill, they want a quarter inch hole.

Utah Business Magazine

Sales & Marketers of the year

Forbes

College Enrollment Shrank In Fall 2020 (But Not Everywhere)

College enrollment declined in Fall 2020, according to estimates by the National Student Clearinghouse (NSC), but the decline was far less severe than many observers previously predicted.

Forbes

The Top 100 Companies For Remote Jobs In 2021

For years, translation and localization company Lionbridge has maintained a remote workforce, with employees operating from 5,000 cities around the globe.

Forbes

Happy? New Year: Five Resolutions For Higher Ed

t week felt more like the 53rd week of the prior year, rather than the first week of 2021. Our expectations for a new year, one in which we can finally stop using the word ‘unprecedented’, may already have been dashed.

Working Nation

Higher education must innovate and put non-traditional learners first

Learners First Framework: Presidents Forum outlines 10 principles the group believes will help all institutions better serve their increasingly diverse student populations

Money

How to Go to College for Free (or Pretty Close to It)

Facing economic instability and comparatively high unemployment, millions of Americans are considering their career plans from a fresh lens, including the possibility of starting or continuing college.

Futurific Leading Indicators

Everyone Can Use a Lifelong Degree

U.S. Chamber of Commerce

Scott Pulsipher on Reimagining Talent Finance

Education should be the surest path to opportunity. But traditional higher education has two fundamental design problems: first, we have conceived education as a path as leading only to the first opportunity, as opposed to a continuous path that leads us through our entire careers.

EdSurge

New U Venture Partners Gets a New Partner, Name and Investment Scope

New U Venture Partners is getting a new partner. And along with that comes a new name and a broader investment thesis.

The Evolllution

Fast Forward: Looking to the Future Workforce and Online Learning

With employers and students looking to close the gap in workforce skills, it’s critical for them to know what skills are in need the most.

The College Post

College, University Presidents Promote ‘Learners First’ Higher Ed Reform

With long-standing issues such as widening racial and economic inequality and outdated course offerings being amplified by the pandemic, US colleges and universities are being called upon to reassess their policies and practices.

Education Dive

College network debuts framework to serve diverse student bodies

The members of the Presidents Forum — many of whom helm large online colleges such as Western Governors, Southern New Hampshire and Capella universities — will meet over the next 15 months to share best practices and produce resources for other institutions to meet the framework's goals, according to a news release.

Getting Smart

Marni Baker Stein on What’s Next For Higher Education

On this episode of the Getting Smart Podcast, we’re talking with Marni Baker Stein, Provost and Chief Academic Officer at Western Governors University (WGU).

Higher Ed Dive

College network debuts framework to serve diverse student bodies

The members of the Presidents Forum — many of whom helm large online colleges such as Western Governors, Southern New Hampshire and Capella universities — will meet over the next 15 months to share best practices and produce resources for other institutions to meet the framework's goals, according to a news release.

Market Scale

How a Utah Incubator is Helping to Solve Education’s Tech Needs

The world of EdTech is exploding as the demand rises due to COVID. However, taking a curriculum from in-person to online isn’t as easy as turning on a webcam.

Ed Surge

Trump’s Legacy For Students and Workers: Shifting Focus From ‘Degrees’ to ‘Skills’

About 36 percent of Americans age 25 and older have earned at least a bachelor’s degree.

Telecompetitor

Governors Report on Broadband Best Practices for States, CARES Act Broadband Funding

Governors can help spur broadband deployment in their states through a range of best practices, according to a new report from the National Governors Association and Western Governors University.

Institute of Effectiveness in Higher Education

Using Data to Support Adult Learners in Competency-Based Education

At the beginning of 2020, none of us could have predicted the challenges we’d face this year.

Education Technology Insights

The Key to Regaining America’s Trust in Higher Ed? Skills

Education Dive

Western Governors spins off college readiness program as a nonprofit

WGU Academy, the college readiness arm of Western Governors University, announced this week that it has become a separate nonprofit corporation.

EdTech Magazine

EDUCAUSE 2020: College Presidents Rally to Lead and Empower in Response to COVID-19

Higher education is facing one of its most existential threats with the global COVID-19 pandemic forcing campuses to shut down and shift to virtual instruction indefinitely.

News 12 Brooklyn

Surprise graduation ceremony, wedding engagement cap big day for Brooklyn woman

A Brooklyn woman who planned on surprising her parents with her master’s in business degree had the tables turned on her during a day she will never forget.

The Evolllution

Disruption, Leadership in Crisis, and Re-Imagining the Promise of Higher Education

With the degree to which the pandemic has disrupted higher education, it’s more important than ever for leaders and institutions to embrace change and push for a more innovative future that will not only provide institutional benefits but also a better learning experience to students.

Hechinger Report

OPINION: Time to rebuild the economy, not just stimulate it

The American economy is in dire need of life support, and federal stimulus efforts have been critical to limiting the economic damage. But cash infusions aren’t nearly enough. We need to do more than get Americans back to work; we need to prepare them for a future of work that looks very, very different.

Ellucian

Ellucian Announces 2020 Impact Award Winners

Ed tech leader awards $150,000 in grants to six institutions; Prize recognizes excellence in student experience, innovation and digital transformation

Silicon Slopes Newsroom

Bridging the Digital Divide

It is sobering to consider what the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic would have been if it had taken place 30 years ago, before internet access was ubiquitous and pocket-sized devices could connect us to the world of learning and work, to far flung friends and family, and to entertainment and consumption with only a click.

U.S. News & World Report

How to Pay for College Using Overlooked Strategies

Students might not be aware of these strategies to pay for college, including options created in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

Forbes

Finding A New Job Is Hard, But New Tech Can Change That

How do you share your talents, abilities, knowledge, and achievements? It isn’t always easy to communicate what we can do through a résumé or job application.

WSAW-TV

The digital divide crisis in education

More than 21 million Americans have no meaningful access to the Internet, a divide widened by the pandemic. This lack of access impacts more than 15 million students and as the rest of the country shifts to virtual work, health, and education “new normal,” it is the same “old normal” for these forgotten students who are offline and out of mind.

NPR

How To Make The Most Of Online College This Fall

Millions of students are starting the fall semester online — in their childhood bedrooms, at kitchen tables surrounded by siblings or wherever they can find a quiet spot — as the coronavirus has forced more than a third of four-year colleges to teach entirely virtually.

Forbes

Covid Is Hurting Higher Ed’s Bottom Line. Who Should Foot The Bill?

Our system of higher education is internationally admired, but also hugely expensive

Stat

Go national to solve the country’s looming nursing shortage

Nurses need our support now more than ever as they manage the frontlines in the fight against Covid-19, working long hours and risking their own well-being to care for those who are sick.

Quartz

History will look back on 2020 as a turning point for US universities

Covid-19 has forced universities to reckon with online higher education, many for the first time.

Diplomatic Courier

Embracing a Skills-Based Future

Embracing a Skills-based Future Is Now More Urgent than Ever.

Deseret News

Colleges will survive the fall. The bigger question is how we help students thrive

How can we renew higher education as the surest path to opportunity? How can we make sure that its promise is widely and equitably accessible?

RealClear Policy

The Outdated Tax Provision Holding Back Economic Recovery

The economic impact of the pandemic — including job losses — is going to get worse before it gets better.

KSL News Radio

WGU’s Scott Pulsipher on innovating education amid COVID

Western Governors University president Scott Pulsipher joins Boyd to discuss the nonprofit university's perspectives on higher education amid the COVID pandemic and how they are already one step ahead with their mission of innovating higher education and a skill-focused curriculum.

Times Higher Education

Pandemic crisis touted as time to finally embrace older students

Campus-focused plans show US colleges still too age-limited, says job-centric pioneer

Inside Higher Ed

Online Learning's Outlook for the Fall

Many questions loom about remote learning in coming months. Will online offerings from colleges be more sophisticated? What steps need to be taken to ensure academic quality in online learning? And will short-term credentials be more popular?