Solana Beach, CA (PRWEB) October 28, 2015
DreamDegree™ has launched its First-Year-Free™ program -- the first online program that enables selected students to take 10 college general education courses and earn as many as 30 college credits for free. According to Founder, Michael K. Clifford, the difference between this program for student success versus many other online programs is a free Personal Coach for each student, and an innovative structure that invites colleges to compete to register students.
"This anywhere, anytime innovative education model has free Personal Coaches who field competing offers from accredited four-year schools to register our students and transfer their First-Year-Free™credits. It saves the student 25 percent on the total cost of a higher education,” Clifford said. “Until now, no school could offer free online courses with the potential to transfer credits to an accredited four-year school on such a large scale.The innovation that makes this mobile experience possible is simple: ‘Schools compete. Students win.’”
First-Year-Free™ courses have credit recommendation by the American Council on Education’s College Credit Recommendation Service (ACE CREDIT®). More than 2,000 higher education institutions that consider ACE credit recommendations for transfer to degree programs are part of ACE CREDIT’s College and University Network. The decision to accept specific credit recommendations is up to each institution. Once DreamDegree™ personal coaches help students gain admission and transfer credits to a school in ACE CREDIT’s College and University Network, the school pays for its student placement services.
This full year of general education courses is intended to help lower the cost of a college education," said Thomas Cavanagh, Associate Vice President of Distributed Learning at the University of Central Florida. "I am eager to watch the new releases of the Adaptive Mobile software as it aims to continuously improve the student experience."
DreamDegree™ plans to launch a mobile platform in January 2016 that uses adaptive-based learning as well as smaller, mobile-friendly learning pods. Its courses and materials are currently accessible via desktop or laptop computer at http://www.dreamdegree.org, making it possible for a student to enroll and study without having to relocate to a traditional campus. The eight-week courses are guided by a Personal Professor, but self-paced so students can choose to accelerate their learning by finishing early or making use of the entire eight weeks.
Students qualify by having a high school diploma or GED, and may not be concurrently enrolled in another university or college. Students must enroll in a school in the ACE CREDIT College and University Network. If they decide on a school that is not a member of the network, they are charged a fee of $33.33 per credit for their transcript, which offsets costs for Personal Coach, eBook, Personal Professor, tools and technology in courses taken.
DreamDegree™ helps people live better lives by enabling them to engage in higher-level learning and complete a bachelor’s degree affordably. These faculty-friendly education platform courses are delivered by AlignDegree Services, LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of SignificantTechnology, LLC, which has offered courses with ACE’s Credit recommendations since 2011. For more information, please visit http://www.dreamdegree.org.