SOPHIA Announces Five Online Courses Recommended For College Credit By American Council On Education

MINNEAPOLIS, April 17, 2013 /PRNewswire/ -- SOPHIA Pathways for College Credit™ (SPCC) – a self-paced program that offers online courses for college credit at a significant savings over traditional college classes – today announced that the American Council on Education's College Credit Recommendation Service (ACE CREDIT®) has evaluated and recommended college credit for five online courses. ACE, the major coordinating body for all the nation's higher education institutions, seeks to provide leadership and a unifying voice on key higher education issues and to influence public policy through advocacy, research and program initiatives.

"We developed SPCC to make college affordable and accessible so that students of all ages can finally achieve their goal of completing their degree without having the burden of excessive debt," said Allison Gage, Senior Vice President at SOPHIA. "Considering that less than one-third of adults over the age of 25 have a bachelor's degree or higher, and more and more jobs require training beyond high school, SPCC offers students an alternative to traditional college courses where they can work at their own pace, pay a fraction of the cost and complete general education credits required for a variety of degrees."

SOPHIA launched its online courses for college credit in the fall of 2012 and since then more than 200 students have completed courses. The SPCC courses that have received credit recommendations from ACE CREDIT are College Algebra, Human Biology, Introduction to Psychology, Introduction to Sociology and Introduction to Statistics.  

"There's been an explosion of online learning options recently but none like SPCC that offers real credit and courses that students need for their degree," Gage said. "With many students opting to take a combination of online and traditional courses, SPCC lets them take control of their education by earning credits on their own time, at their own pace, and with a learning model that works for their individual learning style – particularly students who don't learn as well with the traditional one-to-many lecture model. We are extremely encouraged by the 85 percent completion rate of the students that have completed SPCC thus far and see it as a positive sign that individualized education can be effective."

Students can enroll in SPCC at any time and complete the online courses from any Internet connection or device. SPCC's self-paced courses are better designed to meet the needs of the student than programs that offer one instructor and a rigid schedule. Each course features SOPHIA's Many Ways to Learn™ model where individual concepts are taught by a variety of different instructors each with their individual style, so students can choose one that works best for them. In addition, all instructional materials are available online and included in the initial price, further increasing the affordability of SPCC by eliminating the expense of textbooks.

"SPCC is truly a game changer when it comes to offering a program that fits the needs of a variety of students – whether they are currently in college, an adult learner wanting to go to college or a high school student looking to earn college credits before they graduate," Gage said.  

SPCC was developed by SOPHIA.org, a social education platform that offers more than 32,000 free academic tutorials taught in a variety of ways, by a multitude of teachers and education enthusiasts. SPCC is the latest innovation by SOPHIA, which is focused on making credible academic tools available to students in grade 6 through the first two years of college.

ACE CREDIT® helps adults gain academic credit for courses and examinations taken outside traditional degree programs. More than 2,000 colleges and universities consider ACE CREDIT recommendations in determining the applicability to their course and degree programs.

For more than 30 years, colleges and universities have trusted ACE CREDIT to provide reliable course equivalency information to facilitate their decisions to award academic credit. For more information, visit the ACE CREDIT website at www.acenet.edu/credit.

To learn more, visit www.SOPHIA.org.

About SOPHIA
SOPHIA.org is a social education platform that empowers students to learn in their own way, helps teachers to innovate and puts college students on a path to a lower-cost degree. The free site offers more than 32,000 academic multimedia tutorials taught by over 6,000 teachers using a unique Many Ways to Learn™ model where each concept is taught by multiple teachers so students can choose a teaching style that works best for them. The site further enhances the learning process by offering quizzes, assessing learning preferences and providing sequenced learning pathways. SOPHIA also provides free teacher certification programs about the flipped classroom and using tablets in the classroom.

In addition, SOPHIA recently launched SOPHIA Pathways for College Credit (SPCC), a self-paced college-level online learning program that offers general education courses priced around 80 percent less than a traditional course. SPCC makes higher education affordable, accessible and inspirational for students in high school and beyond. SOPHIA is a subsidiary of Capella Education Company (NASDAQ: CPLA).

For more information, visit www.sophia.org.

About ACE
Founded in 1918, ACE is the major coordinating body for all the nation's higher education institutions, representing more than 1,600 college and university presidents, and more than 200 related associations, nationwide. It provides leadership on key higher education issues and influences public policy through advocacy. For more information, please visit www.acenet.edu or follow ACE on Twitter @ACEducation.

SOURCE SOPHIA.org