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A High School Diploma Is No Longer Enough To Ensure Success

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A high school diploma is no longer enough to ensure success in the globalized world we live in. Low skill jobs made available by a high school education are, as time goes by, more and more likely to be automated or sent overseas. Even college degrees sometimes fail to secure their holders a solid career. Technology keeps advancing, and as it pushes forward, many workers look to education to stay relevant. Thomas Friedman, New York Times journalist and author of “The World Is Flat”, says "...its not only what you know but how you learn that will set you apart. Because what you know today will be out of date sooner than you think" (309). Friedman acknowledges that in today’s ever-changing world, you must continually learn new things, and as …show more content…

(Mendenhall, 2012)
Students are able to learn at their own pace, and take all the time they need to master a subject using the resources given by the program or whatever they can find online, including Massive Open Online Courses—whether it be a much shorter or longer period of time than required for a traditional class. They then take tests or create projects to prove their “competency” in the subject. Online CBE takes this new method a step further, by making it more broadly accessible to any student with a reliable internet connection, as well as reducing another common barrier to higher education: the money required to attain a degree. The Center for American Progress published an article on CBE concluded that, “Competency-based education could be the key to providing quality, postsecondary education to millions of Americans at a lower cost” (Soares). Online CBE has the potential to be cheaper and more accessible than traditional education, enabling many more students who want to better their lives by learning to fulfill their dreams and passions. These online programs also allow students to keep working full time, further reducing the time and money barriers as they work themselves through school. With online competency-based education, more people are able to participate in higher education. But for these students to be successful, they need to learn how to learn. As Thomas Friedman points out in his book “The World is Flat”, “The first,

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