New Excelsior College Cornerstone Initiative; starting January 2020

[sanantone]

From the perspective of a cheap student who hates writing and already took college-level English in high school, I wouldn't want to take these courses. From the perspective of a former college instructor, I can understand why the courses exist.

Non-traditional, open-entry schools often require an introductory course that is basically information literacy. From what I've heard, COSC's cornerstone is more involved that the introductory courses I've encountered at other online colleges. Since these schools accept almost everyone, I think the purpose of the cornerstone is to prepare students for future courses and to give them an idea of whether they can handle college-level work.

Capstones are more for quality control. When students could CLEP out of 100% of the credits, I did notice that many of them could not write well. These are the people going out into the workforce representing these colleges. Remember that most Big 3 students are not trying to transfer in over 90% of the required credits. If they weren't taking a cornerstone, they would be taking another general education course. If they weren't taking a capstone, they would be taking another area of study elective.