The Degree Qualifications Profile

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Higher Education Transformation Competency-based Education (CBE)

Abstract

Through this document, Lumina Foundation for Education offers a “Degree Qualifications Profile,” a tool that can help transform U.S. higher education. A Degree Profile — or qualifications framework — illustrates clearly what students should be expected to know and be able to do once they earn their degrees — at any level. This Degree Profile thus proposes specific learning outcomes that benchmark the associate, bachelor’s and master’s degrees — which constitute the great majority of postsecondary degrees awarded by U.S. colleges and universities — regardless of a student’s field of specialization.
 
The learning outcomes specified in this Degree Profile are not without precedent. In fact, the Degree Profile draws on more than a decade of widespread debate and effort, across all levels of U.S. higher education, to define expected learning outcomes that graduates need for work, citizenship, global participation and life. Building from this work, this Degree Profile is deliberately offered as a “beta version” that will be further tested and refined by a variety of stakeholders.The long-term goal is to clearly define quality in American higher education and to develop new capacity throughout postsecondary education to ensure that students achieve the levels of learning they need and deserve.

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