What Is Alternative (or “Non-Traditional”) Education?

Excerpted from the Introduction of `The Alternative Guide to College Degrees & Non-Traditional Higher Education` by John B. Bear, Ph.D. (Published by the Stonesong Press, a division of Grosset & Dunlap, Inc., 1980).

A few years ago, if you lived in the United States and wanted to earn a college degree - a bachelor, masters, or doctorate - you really had only one alternative: Go to a campus, take class after class, year after year, until you had completed enough units for the degree. Normally this used to take four years for a bachelor’s degree, one or two more for a master’s degree, and two or three years beyond that for a doctorate. There has truly been a revolution in higher education in America since 1970. In essence of this revolution can be summarized in a single sentence: Today, instead of getting credit (and degrees) from a physical, formal, traditional university, you can get credit (and degrees) for what you learn on your own, in your own time, non-traditionally.

The Comparative Argument of Alternative Education:

1. Traditional education awards degrees based on the time served and the credits earned. Alternative education awards degrees based on demonstrated competencies and skills.

2. Traditional education bases degrees requirements on the medieval concept of some “liberal” education and some specialized education. Alternative education bases degrees requirements on an agreement between student and faculty designed to help the student achieve his or her career and personal goals.

3. Traditional education considers the years from eighteen to twenty-two as the optimum time for attending college. Alternative education assumes that learning is desirable throughout life, and degrees should be available at any age.

4. Traditional education views faculty as transmitters of knowledge and information. Alternative education views faculty as counselors who help students learn how to learn.

5. Traditional education aims at producing a well-educated “finished product” ready to enter the job market or graduate school. Alternative education aims at producing lifelong learners, capable of change and responding through life to their own evolving needs and those of society.

Comments by the Carnegie Commission on Non-Traditional Education

Excerpted from a study funded by the Carnegie Commission and conducted by the Educational Testing Institute.

Almost as many Americans seek some form of education outside the established educational system as within it... There is, then a very large group of people outside the formal structure of education with obvious educational needs. If society is to develop mechanisms to help meet these needs, an essential early step is to analyze the populations reached by the non-formal systems... A new set of terms and concepts is being developed, some of which represent very old ideas and all of which, like other innovations, will doubtless be carried to excess...

The Commission believes that the potential of these approaches outweighs the possibility of excess. The rigidities of time, space, and academic credentialing have worked directly to foster elitism in higher education. The aims of education properly involve the achievement of competence, understanding, knowledge, and sensitivity. If attention is focused on diverse means to these objectives and not on rigid structure, many people not now thought to be “college material” can achieve these goals...

Non-traditional study is more an attitude than a system and thus can never be defined except tangentially. This attitude puts the student first and the institution second, concentrates more on the formers need than the latter’s convenience, encourages diversity of individual opportunity rather than uniform prescription, and de-emphasizes time, space, and even course requirements in favor of competence and, where applicable, performance. It has concern for the learner of any age and circumstance, for the degree aspirant as well as the person who finds sufficient reward in enriching life through constant, periodic, or occasional study...

In sum, the Commission has come away from its study of the proliferation and growth of alternate educational systems and new techniques with a conviction that both are developments to be welcomed rather than feared. Some alternate enterprises have already shown themselves to be equal in quality to formal educational offerings and occasionally better... Some technological advances offer even greater promise for expanding clientele, offering high-quality learning, and lowering costs per student. The Commission believes that both the systems and forms deserve close attention, encouragement and assistance...

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