$7 billion is the estimated annual cost of college-level remediation according to the National Center for Education Statistics.
A new class catalog will be in place for incoming freshmen students for the 2015 fall semester. All two-and four-year institutions in the state of Idaho will share a 36-credit common core.
This is the result if a state policy called General Education Matriculation (GEM) that will bring some changes to college students in Idaho.
After more than a year of meetings of meetings, discussions and looking at what oter states had done, the GEM policy emerged.
This means that any student who transfers from one college to another in Idaho will have the guarantee that all their general education credits will be accepted, therefore aiding the increasing number of students attending multiple institutions.
“This really is a student-focused reform,” said Larry Briggs, dean of general studies in charge of the new policy on the NIC campus. “This provides an even higher level of assurance to students in terms of transferability and student transportability.”
Based on nationwide efforts to reform general education in colleges and universities, Boise State University and the University of Idaho took initiative to improve general education for students. The leadership of the Idaho State Board of Education followed suit.
“Now it’s going to be pretty much black-and-white consistent because we are all following the same rubric,” Lita Burns, vice president of instruction, said.
While the basic idea of the policy is now in place, the new catalog for the fall semester is not completed yet.
To make sure that all general education classes are consistent with the new state policy, all divisions are submitting their courses for proposal. Once sent, the course is reviewed and is either listed as a general education class or as an elective.
Current students may continue to follow the catalog that existed when they enrolled or may switch over to the new policy if they wish. New students beginning fall semester 2015 will be required to follow the new catalog.
Some classes may be removed and new ones added to current general education classes. All previous general education classes needed to be resubmitted and accepted as a new general education course. Revisions are still being and all will be approved by January.
Another benefit has arisen from the new policy. While going through this process, faculty across Idaho have been given the chance to talk about what general education is and come to a consensus about what should be included in a course.
“It has brought us all to common language about what we believe in the state of Idaho about general education,” Burns said.
The NIC faculty has been very involved with the GEM policy with some members chairing a few of the committees that worked on writing a part of the statewide policy.
“It helps strengthen connections for faculty here,” Briggs said.
With the GEM policy, all the institutions in Idaho will be on the same page collectively and all statewide students will be working towards the same competency levels.
“I’m very excited about it and I think that it reflects good thinking on the parts of lots of people in the state about the quality and value of higher education in Idaho,” said Briggs. “This is a strong model for general education and I think it will serve students very well.”
