Mission-aligned, for-profit postsecondary education and/or workforce education startups that address one or more of our competition topics are encouraged to apply. Competition topics include:
- Personalized Learning Paths
- Skills-Based Hiring Solutions?
- AI-Powered Learning Support
- Empowering Underrepresented Talent
- Simplified Access to Financial Aid
Up to five finalists will receive paid hotel, air travel, and registration for the 2024
ASU+GSV Summit
for one representative of their company, and the winner will receive:
- $50,000 cash investment for equity from the WGU Labs Fund
- $25,000 in services from the WGU Labs Accelerator
- A paid pilot with WGU for up to $25,000
In February we published a research report with Savi on the myriad ways student loans negatively impact borrowers — especially women, Black and LatinX borrowers, and those without a bachelor's degree. We also shared a new blog on why teaching students how to learn should be a focus for every institution facilitating online learning.
- Drowning in Debt: Student Loans Weigh Down Borrowers:?In 2023 student loan debt in the U.S. totaled $1.76 trillion, nearly doubling in the last 12 years. Though college degrees remain a means to achieving greater earning potential, median income has not kept pace with rising tuition costs, requiring students to take out higher student loan balances — and take longer to pay them off. In our latest report with Savi, we captured the experience of over 3,000 student loan borrowers to learn how their debt impacts key personal, financial, and educational milestones. Our findings revealed a grim reality for borrowers — regardless of whether they had earned a credential. Student loans are impacting their mental health, delaying personal and financial milestones, and giving them pause in the value of higher education overall. These repercussions are especially true for African American and/or Black borrowers and Hispanic and/or LatinX borrowers. Read the full report, or Inside Higher Ed’s coverage to learn more.?
- Learning to Learn: Setting Students Up for Success in Online Environments: Institutions of higher education are increasingly investing in online learning courses and programs. Students, too, are requesting more flexible and convenient options to continue their education and develop their career skills. But this shift has raised an important question: Do students have the skills necessary to succeed in online environments? In this blog post, WGU Labs Learning Experience Designer Tadd Farmer shares insights from the project-based learning modules we developed for Headlamp and explores why learning how to learn is critical for student success in online environments.?
- How have higher ed's 7 wicked problems changed thanks to AI and other emerging trends?: How did 2023’s biggest higher education headlines — from AI to the end of the student loan payment pause, and the rise of CBE — impact learners and educators? University Business shares a round-up of our top insights from last year and predictions for 2024.
- Borrowers Without Bachelor's Degrees Are Falling Through the Cracks of the Student Loan System: While choosing the “wrong” repayment plan has financial repercussions for all borrowers, it hurts borrowers without a bachelor’s degree the most. Borrowers without a bachelor’s degree make 42% less in median weekly earnings than those with a bachelor’s. That means even if their payments are lower, each payment will cut more deeply into their budgets. This may partly be why borrowers without a bachelor's degree were almost three times more likely to report being in default than borrowers with a bachelor’s. In this blog post, learn more about why a one-size-fits-all approach to student loan repayment isn’t working.
- Belonging and Connection Series: Learn how psychological factors influence learners’ feelings of belonging and connection in this podcast series from West Valley College featuring WGU Labs’ Director of Learning Innovation,
Omid Fotuhi
. Omid shares the three common questions students ask that trigger belonging uncertainty, the role that technology plays in facilitating or fraying belonging, and how belonging frees creative thinking, imagination, and optimal performance.
We’re excited to share the results of our first EdTech survey of higher education administrators! The survey, which included 214 administrators from diverse colleges and universities across the country, explores how administrators perceive and make decisions about educational technology, how they view the future of higher education, and how their institutions are approaching new generative AI technologies. Keep an eye out for the report later this month.?
Collaboration, diverse perspectives, and ideas that challenge the status quo are critical to solving higher education’s Wicked Problems. We’d love to hear from you. Leave us a comment to let us know what’s on your mind. And consider sharing this newsletter with your network to help us maximize our impact.?
