Bachelor’s degree completion

(1) Problem: UNT is committed to increasing access to education and employment to the 36 million students with some college credit and no degree, and others whose skills are misaligned with professions in this rapidly changing economy.

(2) Solution: UNT is proposing to expand its fully-online Bachelor of Applied Arts and Sciences (B.A.A.S.) degree, one of the fastest, most affordable ways for transfer students from community colleges and technical institutions, veterans or active-duty military personnel, and other non-traditional students with college credit to finish their bachelor’s degree.

(3) Change Lives: In partnership with Coursera, non-traditional students worldwide have the opportunity to thrive in a high-quality academic environment with engaging support, personal interaction, and services designed for student success before application, during matriculation and post-graduation.

A four-year degree continues to be regarded as one of the most valued credentials in the job market: An estimated 35% of jobs in the U.S. require at least a bachelor’s degree and a worker with a bachelor’s degree earns 84 percent more than a worker without one. However, 36 million Americans have attended college and never completed their degree. This means that many have college debt and no credential.

Navigating a confusing higher education system contributes to this problem for many students, especially first time in college students. Also, some students leave school because attending traditional in-person classes while balancing a job or family obligations are difficult and expensive. This can lead to disjointed higher education experiences and these students need more help navigating systems and processes for transfer students when they are ready to pursue higher education again.

At the start of the recent recession, unemployment rates for adult workers age 25+ with no high school diploma were nearly three times higher than four-year degree holders. By June, average unemployment rates for adult workers with only a high school diploma (12.1%) still remained above average (11.1%).

Our solution is to encourage students to pursue UNT’s online BAAS degree through Coursera. Partnering with Coursera facilitates opportunities for students to try before they buy and build their confidence in a lower stakes environment before committing to the affordable full degree. The platform can be accessed from anywhere in the world, 24/7 and offers a mobile app for learning on the go.  Once admitted to the program, the advising team and a team of success coaches, mentors, tutors, and career specialists will provide continuous guidance throughout the student’s’ degree journey.  UNT and Coursera Enrollment work collaboratively to ensure prospective students have the highest level of concierge service from the first point of contact all the way through to graduation. UNT is a Carnegie Tier-One research university and ranks in the top 100 nationally for ethnic diversity and social mobility. Students who complete a BAAS degree from UNT can have confidence in their high-quality education. 

The target population for this solution are adult working professionals, many of whom have families and other competing obligations.  The age of these students is commonly 28-35 but range up to the mid-70s.  Currently, 11% of our online B.A.A.S. students are unemployed and 77% are under-employed.  We understand that these students have had a disjointed higher education experience and we have designed wraparound services to uniquely serve them in returning to school.  Through our high-touch pre-advising process, students will know exactly how long it will take them to complete the degree and the cost before they even apply.  We are continuously incorporating student feedback into the program to learn what this population needs to be successful. We engage students through webinars, emails, and one-on-one sessions through wraparound services.

This solution will address student needs because more jobs require bachelor’s degrees than ever before. The rigorous, multidisciplinary BAAS degree offers eight focused concentrations: administration, organizational supervision, social services, hospitality, media innovation, consumer behavior, data analytics, and information technology. Graduates will be prepared to tackle new challenges as leaders in business, non-profit organizations, and community engagement in some of the most in-demand industries. 

Our solution reimagines pathways to employment at a critical time when those without a bachelor’s degree are disproportionately losing their jobs during the pandemic. The carefully selected and market-research driven BAAS concentrations ensure that graduates will obtain jobs requiring a bachelor’s degree in high demand employment sectors. Students can maintain their current income and study in a flexible fashion that will not disrupt their everyday lives. UNT’s online BAAS accepts college credits, workforce credits, and military credits so that we can honor the work our students have done without starting over.  

UNT Core team: 5 full-time employees

UNT Support team: 20 full-time employees and 5 student employees

For the third year in a row, INSIGHT Into Diversity magazine recognized UNT with the Higher Education Excellence in Diversity (HEED) Award, a national honor recognizing U.S. colleges and universities that demonstrate an outstanding commitment to diversity and inclusion. UNT’s Action Plan for further improving diversity and inclusion on campus includes adding diversity and inclusion initiatives in the UNT Strategic Plan; mandatory training on cultural competency and implicit bias; and hiring a more diverse workforce reflective of UNT’s student demographics. The mission of the Division of Digital Strategy and Innovation’s Diversity Action Committee (DSI DAC) is to facilitate a welcoming culture where diversity, equity and inclusion are core competencies and intentionally valued through education and taking practical action on thoughtful, iterative and innovative policy and strategy.

A bachelor’s degree completion program is an academic program specifically designed for students who have started, but not finished, a four-year undergraduate degree. By accepting some or all of the credits that a student has already earned from their previous education, degree completion programs offer students a faster and often less expensive alternative to starting over an undergraduate education from scratch. UNT’s BAAS is innovative in that it’s the first of its kind program at-scale that features stackable “try before you buy” modules. Once a student is ready to pursue the full degree, the cost is significantly lower than a majority of bachelor’s programs. Our BAAS program accepts workforce and military credit when most other programs do not. We have flexible 8-week terms rather than 16-week terms. Additionally, the BAAS is multidisciplinary offering concentrations from a variety of colleges and departments across the university combined to create a well-rounded learning program.

Our program is innovative because we offer Premium Student Wraparound Services. For example, students are partnered with Success Coaches to help set goals and identify the steps for success. The Learning Center at UNT offers a wide variety of tutoring options including one-on-one tutoring, drop-in tutoring on Zoom, Ask-A-Tutor, and TutorTube that will help you learn the concepts you need to succeed in each and all of your classes. Also, the UNT Career Center and career coaches can help with resume writing, interview skills, skills assessments, connecting students with careers, and much more.  

Activities: UNT partnered with Coursera to offer a highly accessible bachelor’s completion degree.

Outputs: Students have access to complete their bachelor’s degree using their previous credits and successes rather than starting over.

Short Term Outcomes: Course by course students are developing high-demand skills and habits to propel them to the next level.

Long Term Outcomes: Bachelor’s degree allowing students to accomplish their professional goals, right-sized employment and appropriate compensation.

One Year:

• Scale to 500 students in the program
• Offer and curate enough scholarships and non-federal financial aid for the 20% of students who have exhausted federal financial aid
• Scale to 2,000 students

Five Years:

• Scale to 2,000 students

Covid-19 presents financial uncertainty for our target audience who may be experiencing hardship with unemployment or underemployment. According to an EAB survey, about 70% of prospective adult learners reported that the pandemic negatively impacted their outlook on current and future employment.

We have many students interested in pursuing the BAAS degree, but they have exhausted their federal financial aid. Even with UNT’s low tuition, the program can be relatively expensive for some students. UNT awards institutional aid as scholarships to students thanks to the generosity of donors, but we are seeking additional funds to help.

We are always seeking new ways to reach prospective students. 

We hope to increase the number of students who pursue their online BAAS degree. This will allow us to reinvest some program revenue into future student scholarships. Currently, we have limited institutional funds available from the university to provide scholarships to students. We are actively seeking donors to support additional scholarships.

Our partnership with Coursera includes their significant investment in television ads as well as leveraging their platform to reach people who have self-reported that they do not have a bachelor’s degree but are current learners on the platform. 

This degree is the first of its kind in scalable higher education.  As the first US based bachelor’s degree on Coursera and only the second overall, we are well suited for visibility in the market for people who want to upskill and reskill.  Dr. Fein has served in higher education for 20 years.  His insight into the needs to diverse and nontraditional students is what propelled the desire to take a high-quality on-campus program and offer it at-scale to the world on Coursera.  UNT is a minority majority institution and with a high population of first-generation college graduates populating our alumni pool, we are uniquely positioned to meet the needs of a population who haven’t found success in higher education environments previously.    

Providing education to employees (degrees, courses, modules, projects) through self-pay or tuition benefit models:

• JPMorgan Chase
• Liberty Mutual
• Cinemark

Students feed into fully online B.A.A.S. and Data Analytics masters degree and certificates

Partnering to add value to a UNT degree program:

• Dallas Cowboys and UNT's MBA in Sport Entertainment management

Partnering with technology industry to bring innovative technology to the classroom- face to face and virtual: 

• Coursera
• Packback
• GSV Labs

Classroom technology use

Partnering with other educational institutions for referrals: 

• Merit America

Referrals to BAAS

Our partnerships with Coursera and other companies who encourage employees to pursue their online BAAS degree will grow the number of students. This will help us generate the revenue necessary to financially sustain the program. We will continue to seek philanthropic donations to create scholarships for students.  

Our hope is to raise funds to provide more scholarships for incoming students, specifically those who do not have access to federal funding.  There really is no cap to the funding needed as the more funding we have, the more students we can help accomplish their educational goals.  

In order for UNT to help the 36 million people nationwide who have earned some credit but no degree to take the next step to earn their degree, we need to be able to use our resources to provide funding for some of our students to be able to confidently and comfortably take the next step.  In all of our marketing efforts, the most common question we see is “what kind of aid or scholarships are available?” It is important for us to have a solid answer to that question.  

Assistance with our funding and revenue model can help us come up with innovative ways to ensure students have the funding they need to be able to earn their degree without the burden of additional school debt. 

Marketing, media, and exposure- increasing visibility of this program around the world will ensure growth and our ability to reach more people.  Currently, Coursera leverages their platform users for marketing and exposure purposes by sending emails and hosting on-platform ads.  

Private foundation funders to assist with scholarships

Companies with employees who would benefit from the program