“Without WGU’s program, it would have taken me at least five years to graduate from a traditional school, and that would have been a major hardship on my family,” Schenk says.

Can online programs improve completion rates for other low-income students and help them improve their economic status? WGU hopes to answer this question with the help of a $1.2 million grant from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to study the potential of its online program.  

“The study’s goal is to demonstrate that the WGU competency-based online education system, with personal mentors for each student, can significantly improve completion rates,” says Dr. Robert Mendenhall, WGU president. “We feel it does, so now we aim to show the hard facts to support it, and through the study results encourage other online schools to adopt some of our protocols. [WGU’s] whole focus from the beginning has been to extend to underserved populations and help them succeed.” 

WGU is the only accredited online university in the country that awards degrees based on the competency system. To receive a degree under this system, students must demonstrate skill in their subject matter as opposed to accumulating credits. Students undergo a series of examinations to measure their expertise in their subject matter, such as field work evaluations, performance tests and projects.