College Unbound looks to gain degree-granting status

PROVIDENCE – College Unbound, a nonprofit higher education program targeting low-income and often marginalized adults, has proposed operating in Rhode Island as a degree-granting program and offering a Bachelor of Arts degree in organizational leadership and change.

The proposal is included in a May 1 document to the R.I. Council on Postsecondary Education from Commissioner Jim Purcell as part of the agenda from the council’s May 6 meeting. It is unclear when the matter might next come up, although the council has a work session scheduled for 5:30 p.m. Wednesday. No agenda for that meeting was posted late Monday afternoon.

The May 1 document provides background on the proposal, a one-page series of motions to recommend approval, and a nine-page summary and review by the staff of the Office of the Postsecondary Commissioner, completed with the aid of an unidentified “external reviewer.”

College Unbound has proposed using the Metropolitan Regional and Technical Center in Providence during evening hours, and would operate according to the state’s regulations governing institutions of higher education, according to the document.

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College Unbound students typically have at least nine college credits but no degree. The current model, the document states, is a hybrid of “online content and in-place learning support.”

According to the OPC review, College Unbound had operated previously as a program in conjunction with Roger Williams University and is today in partnership with Charter Oak University in Connecticut.

“It is out of a desire to develop its model fully without having to adapt to the goals of other institutions that motivates CU to request the authority to operate as [a] higher education institution,” the OPC staff state. It would pursue accreditation through the New England Association of Schools and Colleges.

The proposal indicates that College Unbound expects to target adult learners with some college credits as well as those from populations traditionally underrepresented in higher education. By 2020-21, College Unbound projects 500 students could be enrolled in the degree program.

Purcell and College Unbound Director and faculty member Dennis Littky could not be reached for comment late Monday afternoon.

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