Higher education today faces many challenges, including lower than desired completion rates, the high cost and resulting debt associated with attaining a degree, and low educational quality that leaves many graduates unprepared for the workforce and employers disappointed with their abilities.
One approach to these challenges currently receiving a lot of attention is the “unbundling” of college degrees, in which students complete only those courses or develop those skills needed to acquire competencies for employment.
At the same time that unbundling college degrees is gaining momentum, many campuses are bundling curricula even more tightly in order to integrate learning and provide students with a more coherent experience. These efforts are underway to help students make intentional connections between different disciplines and experiences, which will enable them to bring a broad range of knowledge, skills, attitudes, and frameworks to bear on the complex problems they face as students and will face as employees and citizens. Bundled education promotes success in today’s world, as the issues and problems people encounter are too complex to be addressed with one discipline or a set of discrete technical skills. The Association of American Colleges and Universities (AAC&U) and the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching are supporters of bundled education. AAC&U’s LEAP Challenge pushes for all college and universities to engage their students with assignments that require them to integrate their learning from across disciplines to address real-world challenges. Read more: https://pedagogue.app/should-higher-education-be-bundled-or-unbundled-5/.