Western Governors University was ineligible to participate in federal student-aid programs, according to an audit conducted by the U.S. Department of Education’s Office of Inspector General, and the department should require it to return more than $700 million.
Western Governors, a nonprofit university founded by 19 U.S. governors in the mid-1990s, is something of a bipartisan darling. It is the largest and most visible institution that uses an innovative approach to learning called competency-based education, which it offers online. The approach allows students to progress through course material at their own pace instead of adhering to the traditional semester timeline.
Western Governors’ efforts are seen as supporting a broadly embraced goal — meeting the educational needs of working adults, particularly those with some college but no degree. And it’s won plenty of praise for the model and its results.
Watchers of competency-based education knew that the inspector general was interested in such programs and that an audit of Western Governors was in the works, so its release was not a surprise. But it still sounds a bit shocking: It’s not every day that such a high-profile college faces a penalty generally understood to be a death sentence. Here’s what we know about the audit and its implications so far: