The project would create an electronic database where people could post documentation about the college credits they have earned from various institutions, their work training and other relevant educational experiences.

The frustration over credit transfer has become a major issue for community college students, whether graduates or dropouts when they seek enrollment in a four year college. Currently, faculty members have a lot to say about the legitimacy of transfer credits. You would think that core courses for accounting degrees or the requirements for an electronics technician program would be fairly standard at the associates’ degree level, but that has not proven to be the case for thousands of returning students.

Colleges and universities then essentially would bid for the opportunity to enroll those students by indicating how many credits they would accept, what additional courses would be needed to complete their degrees and how much it would cost. In order for this to work, much of the additional coursework would require that online degree technology be in place and fully operational.

“This would be a one-stop shop where persons from throughout the 12-state region could deposit their credits,” Larry Isaak, president of the Midwestern Higher Education Compact, says. Institutions then would “see if they have programs that might match in helping those students finish a certificate or associate or bachelor’s degree.”

The Midwestern coalition is composed of Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, South Dakota and Wisconsin. The research is being financed by a $100,000 grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

It’s a great concept, but standardization of the “education modules” required for a university degree is the last thing that many schools, especially public land-grant universities, want to see. “Brand value” is the newest buzzword in the academic lexicon. Distance learning schools are far more responsive to the credit transfer issue than traditional universities, and that applies for outgoing as well as incoming students. That’s one of the important aspects of accreditation, a status that has become mandatory for today’s online academies.

Despite the call for an educational structure to support the sustainability movement, MSU intends to close six of the thirteen departments in the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources. Among them would be the Earth Sciences Department, the school’s focal point for environmental and green degrees. The Department of Communicative Sciences and Disorders would also be shut down, a small but significant research and teaching division for audiology and the role of communication in child psychology.

A lot of students in graduate programs were in shock over the potential vaporization of their field of study. As an example there is a graduate program in American Studies slated for elimination, but MSU won’t close down some of these programs immediately because of their obligation to currently enrolled students. The substantial budget savings are two to three years out.

Given all of the debate about the current cost of public universities, where the average annual tuition is over $7,000, the option of online education continues to make more sense. When you add up the cost of living near school and having limited employment options, the debts that emerging graduates are asked to shoulder seem unrealistic.

Additional casualties in MSU’s current plan are the veterinary technologist program, a field that has become a mainstream option for many community college students and now, an option at the four year degree level. There are also six hundred staff jobs that will be eliminated; the future of tenured professors in these departments has yet to be explained.

Collins College in McKinney, Texas has teamed with five Universities to offer a unique learning consortium on one campus. Collins is a school that has traditionally focused on vocational training and associate’s degrees. They will provide the first two years for any degree program offered by the other schools.

Dallas Baptist University, Texas A&M University-Commerce, Texas Woman’s University, the University of Texas at Dallas (UTD) and the University of North Texas (UNT) plan to offer courses there next term. Each University is offering a selection of classes that is unique to the five school consortium. Business degrees, criminal justice and computer science degrees will be offered by UTD.

Texas Women’s University will be teaching classes for child development degrees, education and nursing degrees. Dallas Baptist University also in intends to provide a master’s in teaching, the basic degree that leads to a teaching credential. The University of North Texas will have graduate programs in education and in engineering.

Texas A&M intends to offer a Spanish major, and degrees in both counseling and psychology. Doctoral degrees will be offered as well as the bachelor’s and master’s programs currently being planned. The Collin Higher Education Center, as the facility will be called, was approved last week by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board. Classes will be held in a new $30 million building right off one of the Interstate Highways north of Dallas.

Inside Higher Education is reporting that the committee studying this issue has come forward with a proposal that lays the issue in the hands of the faculty. The problem lies in the area of upper level requirements for completion of a major. The core courses for a four year degree are often the same as for an associate’s degree and transfer easily. It’s the upper level courses that pose a problem.

The article cites as an example a student pursuing a business degree at the community college level who decides that his interest lies in accounting. He may have to retake “financial accounting” and “managerial accounting,” two courses taken by all business majors, because there is not yet a common understand of what these courses comprise.

Other students who start out in an computer networking diploma program but decide to continue on through the associate degree and into a four year college may find that the elemental computer science taught in a diploma course isn’t satisfactory for the bachelor’s program, or that the online degree courses have different content than the classroom courses at the State University level.

The system is taking the decision making power out of the faculty curriculum committees at each school and dispensing with the one-on-one agreements between community colleges and the various four year schools. The goal is to have systematized course descriptions for all levels and agreement on course content across the board. It’s a system that has been implemented in Florida and seems to be working.

The list was compiled through research starting last May during which G.I. Jobs polled more than 7,000 schools nationwide. Criteria for making the Military Friendly Schools list included efforts to recruit and retain military and veteran students and academic accreditations. There are also limits to tuition costs that are written into the new GI bill which schools must meet. When the new GI Bill became law in August of this year, many GIs enrolled in online degree programs while still on active duty – some as far away as Iraq.

“Ashworth is proud to offer a wide range of programs to those serving in the U.S. military and their spouses,” said Gary Keisling, President of Ashworth College. “Our degree programs are offered at less than $100 dollars per credit hour, while most other schools push theirs to the maximum of $250. Military tuition benefits go further with Ashworth College, helping individuals achieve their education goals.”

Part of being military friendly includes helping vets gain credit for military experience. In May of this year, Ashworth announced its partnership with GoArmyEd, a program run by the Army Continuing Education System (ACES). In that announcement Ashworth College said, “Ashworth College recognizes that military experience can often translate to college credits. Ashworth works closely with a number of organizations to review and apply credit for military training…”

Veterans coming out of the army today bring cutting edge experience and knowledge to new academic endeavors. Many veterans who worked with military communications and intelligence equipment could fit in easily to a computer science program.

The army also has medical training programs that provide much of the preliminary training for a medical technologist career or perhaps medical assisting. The Army today is a self contained unit capable of taking all of its support systems to any point on the globe, and they take their essential services with them. When there are 60,000 troops in a foreign land, there are also capable officers meeting medical needs who could transfer into a program for degree in healthcare administration.

In one of his surveys he looked at the educational credentials of American born tech company founders. They interviewed 628 business founders who received their education from 287 unique universities. Almost every major U.S. university was represented in the group; the top ten schools represented by this group had produced only 19% of the sample. In other words, the Dartmouths, Yales, and Berkeleys accounted for less than one fifth of the successful entrepreneurs. The other 81% graduated from “regular” schools.

The next survey they conducted looked into the overall backgrounds of the founders of 549 successful businesses across a range of high-growth industries. The proportion of top schools in this sample was even smaller. But the statistics that emerged about when these entrepreneurs made their move does a lot of damage to the image of the twenty-something geeks who start tech businesses and make millions doing the only thing they know.

The survey showed that businessmen with MBA degrees acted sooner after graduation than those with bachelor’s degrees – but the difference was thirteen years after graduation as opposed to seventeen years. All of these professionals had years of business experience. Both there groups moved faster than the PhD grads, who waited an average of 21 years before establishing their own businesses.

Returning to the degree orientation, they noted that holders of information technology degrees acted faster than the MBA graduates – thirteen years versus fifteen years. Bringing up the rear were the graduates with applied science degrees, who opened their doors twenty years after graduation. Of course, neither Bill Gates nor Steve Jobs waited at all – they dropped out of college to go into business.

Mr. Wadhwa makes the point that the successful entrepreneurs he interviewed valued their education. Seventy percent of the graduates from regular colleges endorsed the importance of their learning experience, while eighty one percent of the Ivy League graduates said the same. Less than twenty percent of either group found networking with fellow alumni to be important.

The message in these surveys is clear: it’s what you learn that matters, not where you learn it. An Ivy League degree makes it easier to get into high level law firms or investment houses, but those opportunities have nothing to do with entrepreneurship.

In addition to commanding his classroom, Kinyon had also been mentoring Michele Interian, a student teacher pursuing a teaching degree at University of Phoenix. Interian interned in Kinyon’s classroom for 15 weeks, learning the ins and outs of education by way of superior example — The Outlook reports that Interian was impressed with the interest Kinyon takes in his students. “He arrives at 6 a.m. every morning to prepare for the day and week’s lessons,” she told the paper. “The students in his class not only vary in grade and age, but also English language ability as well as readiness. He is instrumental in the lives of his students, who also come from varied backgrounds… Russ believes teaching students responsibility, social skills as well as academic skills is equally important. He is kind yet firm, setting clear boundaries with high expectations.” The respect between teacher and student went both way: though giving up was hard, said Kinyon, Interian was someone he knew he could trust with his students.

Each year, University of Phoenix reviews many eligible mentors for their Mentor of the Year Award. This year there were 40 candidates to choose from, but Interian’s esay on her time spent with Kinyon stood out to Phoenix officials above all the others. “Based on Michele’s exceptionally written essay,” said Robert Hamm, Chairman of Education for the university’s Oregon campus, “the department felt the true impact of Russ Kinyon’s mentorship and believed his dedication to rise above a talented group of mentor teachers.”

In addition to the prestige of the award, University of Phoenix donated a $500 prize to Glenfair Elementary, which the school’s principal says will go towards funding reading, behavior and attendance programs. As for Interian, she has graduated and is now a full-fledged teacher at an elementary school in Park City, Utah. Even now, she thanks Kinyon for the skills she learned to keep herself afloat in a classroom of her own — “If I had not been in Russ’s classroom, I know that I would be feeling very lost right now.”

At first, it seems like an odd couple. HandsOn Network is part of of the Points of Light Institute, an organization founded in the spirit of former President George H.W. Bush’s “thousand points of light” inaugural speech addressing the United States’ community and diversity. The organization connects citizens across the country, helps with volunteer resources, and makes opportunities for thousands of citizens who want to help but don’t know how to get started. University of Phoenix, on the other hand, is a private college best known for flexible online business degrees and graduate degree programs. Do online degrees have anything to do with volunteer work? They’re about to.

HandsOn Network is working to keep up with a large influx of volunteers that have come forward, inspired by the president’s speech, but they need help — strengthening their own program, as well as training those volunteers to be leaders, so that they may in turn train still others, and harness the power of community to its fullest. That’s where University of Phoenix comes in. The university is developing “virtual volunteer leader training classes.” With these classes, volunteers can develop their leadership skills from any location in the country, enabling volunteer groups to be more self sufficient, with leaders that are free to spend less time at classes and more time focusing on the local issues that spark their concerns. Instead of coming to HandsOn, HandsOn can come to the volunteers.

Chas Edelstein, Co-Chief Executive Officer of University of Phoenix’s parent company, Apollo Group, Inc., seems especially optimistic about the new course. “The upside of this down economy,” he told the press, “is that people who have not been involved in service before are reaching out to make a difference in the community around them. At University of Phoenix, we recognize that we can develop the leadership skills of those interested in supporting causes that are the most relevant and needed.”

The report is job oriented and down to earth; for instance, it notes that one third of the job opportunities currently available in the green industry sector are for systems engineers of some sort. Further, it points out that India and China are graduating engineers as fast as U.S. universities and putting them to work.

The good news is that there are large numbers of job opportunities which do not require extensive education. The solar industry calls for manufacturing plants to produce solar cells and panels, and solar installers to build residential and commercial solar systems. Today half the solar installation work is in California due to a long-standing state tax break associated with residential solar use. That is about to change, however, as other states adopt legislation to promote alternative energy and photovoltaic (PV) cells become more effective at capturing and converting the sun’s rays

In Iowa, Texas and California manufacturing firms are turning out wind turbines for what is a rapidly expanding U.S. market. The concern about clean energy has begun to override objections to the huge turbine installations on hilltops and windy prairies.

Training for work in these facilities will probably require some training at a trade or vocational school. Solar installations must meet local electrical codes, so solar installers that have attended an electrician trade school are paid more than other crew members and site installation managers.

Not all of the industry’s needs are in plants or on worksites. The report projects a need for computer programming graduates and for alternative energy marketers. Selling residential systems in particular requires a mastery of building codes, tax breaks associated with clean energy, system design and how a solar system will pay for itself through reduced energy costs. These are technical and economic factors that are critical for a green energy sales effort.

According to the Clean Edge report there are 220,000 people employed in the various green business sectors today. That’s an extremely high number for what is considered a brand new employment niche, but it probably includes the large number of professionals working in water and sewage plants, in recycling, and in green construction – all fields where graduates of carpentry training programs and plumbing schools and HVAC training can find work today.

The University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business has campuses in London and Singapore; Duke’s Fuqua School of Business in Durham is also open for business in London, Dubai, New Delhi, St. Petersburg and Shanghai. European schools are also engaged in expansion both by opening new facilities in foreign nations and by partnering with existing institutions.

Students are also traveling to foreign business schools: Warwick Business School in the UK has a student body comprised of individuals from 122 countries. Sixty two percent of their enrolled population is foreign students. In some schools on the Continent, foreign enrollment comprises over 80% of the population. In Europe, graduate business degrees are generally cheaper than the U.S. option and can be completed in 13 months instead of the 21 – 24 month programs at most U.S. schools.

The British term for MBA programs is “management education,” which has a similar history to the MBA as a special educational credential in the business world. A management degree provides the European graduate access to corporate interviews that few other degrees can offer. A decade ago, Harvard and MIT, Cambridge and Oxford were the goals of aspiring business students. 9/11 has changed that, leading to a branding battle among the 10,000 or so business schools that operate around the world.

While some of the American schools have opted for overseas campuses, the European model seems to be consolidation and partnership. In France the CERAM business school in on the Cote d’Azur has teamed with Groupe ESC Lille to create the largest business school in Europe. Their goal is to open facilities on five continents, one of which will be in the U.S. They also intend to market their strengths, which for CERAM is information technology.

In Australia there has been a spate of business school consolidation with an eye towards international marketing. The University of Melbourne recently completed a reorganization and now intends to target the Pacific Asian countries. In Europe, India and many nations on other continents the courses are generally taught in English, the de facto international language of business. And in every case, school administrators see the necessity of focusing on business from a global perspective.

Then there is the option of online business administration degrees. Warwick in the UK has 400 distance learning students, a figure they would be comfortable quadrupling with their present faculty. The large percentage of MBA students that are already working professionals makes online expansion a natural choice for many of the respected schools with high regional recognition. In the U.S. traditional schools are rapidly moving toward the blended degree option and eventually should find a comfort level with degree options that are completely online.