Dive Summary:
- A new investor-backed company called Quad Learning is working with community colleges to create a national network of honors programs dubbed "American Honors."
- The venture is looking to utilize affordability concerns and interest in lower-priced, high-quality alternatives to its advantage, and joins the likes of Altius Education's Ivy Bridge College and Fidelis Education as the latest private capital-backed effort to partner with existing institutions in the interest of creating new programs or institutions focused on students' first two years of college.
- This academic year, American Honors is being piloted at Community Colleges of Spokane and three campuses of Indiana's Ivy Tech Community Colleges, all of which plan to admit full cohorts of 160 students each.
From the article:
There is nothing subtle about the home page of a new venture unveiled Thursday. "$1 Trillion U.S. Student Loan Debt" it screams, with the dollar figure in large yellow type. It then displays the average price of four years at public and private colleges ($71,000 and $158,000, respectively), and follows with data showing that more than a quarter of all bachelor's degree-holders start out at a community college. ...