Accreditors have temporarily limited the University of Maine at Presque Isle’s ability to offer new competency-based educational programs, but that won’t affect existing offerings, University of Maine System officials said.
The system previously had permission to bring new programs online without prior approval by the New England Commission of Higher Education.
Now, following an investigation sparked by a Washington Post article that suggested YourPace students were obtaining degrees in weeks rather than years, the commission temporarily suspended that permission.
“This is really only about potential future expansion, which we do not have plans to do,” Sam Warren, the University of Maine System’s chief external and governmental affairs officer, said Thursday. “It only changes the process between now and April, so it functionally does not change anything for us.”
According to the commission’s Oct. 7 decision letter to Chancellor Dannel Malloy, obtained by the Bangor Daily News on Thursday, the commission suspended the university’s general approval to offer competency-based education programs at University of Maine at Presque Isle.
“General approval,” a term that may be misleading to non-academics, allows institutions to add new programs and locations without getting additional approval from the commission, but it does not mean the program has been suspended, according to the commission.
“Should [the university] plan to offer new competency-based education programs at any of its campuses, it needs to submit a report to the commission, in keeping with the Policy on Substantive Change,” the letter stated.
As part of the routine April investigation, the commission asked the University of Maine System questions about the YourPace program, to which the system supplied a 20-page response for review, commission President Larry Schall previously told the BDN.
“We have the ability to take notice of things in the press and then the commission needs to decide if it is worthy of the commission looking into it further,” Schall said at the time. “In this case, they thought it was.”
As part of that process, the commission reviewed and accepted the university’s extensive response at its late September meeting, university officials said.
Many working adults enter YourPace with 15 or more years of professional experience and transfer an average of at least 90 college credits — equivalent to three years of full-time study — allowing them to complete the remaining requirements for a four-year degree typically in a year or less, according to some of the data the University of Maine System supplied to the commission.
Most YourPace undergraduate students, on average, earn 18 credit hours a semester, consistent with their traditional peers, according to a system release.
Despite the Post’s reporting calling the program’s quality into question, UMPI President Ray Rice and Warren said YourPace competency-based courses are fully accredited and follow the same learning outcomes and assessment standards as in-person courses.
The fact that traditional full-time faculty design, teach and test the students makes a public university’s competency-based program unique, Rice said in a September interview.
“There’s no world in which I can view this as a negative because it is actually doing what it was intended to do,” he said. “This incredible growth is a reflection of that success.”
The speed at which students complete their degrees in competency-based education varies because of their experience, Rice said. Someone with 20 years professional work experience will complete the work much faster than an 18-year-old just starting out.
“For nearly a decade, YourPace has reopened a door to higher education that many working adults thought was closed to them,” Malloy said in a statement. “We are incredibly proud of the success of YourPace and the thousands of adult learners it serves, many of whom are earning life-changing credentials while balancing the demands of work and family.”
Malloy said the system welcomes the commission’s review and is committed to “demonstrating that the innovation and accessibility that make YourPace so impactful are matched by the academic quality and rigor our students, employers and accreditors expect.”
As part of its review, the commission said it was concerned about the “dramatic growth” of YourPace in part due to the speed at which students completed degrees.
Before its planned spring 2027 visit, the commission has asked the university system to prepare a report detailing such items as actual student enrollment, the ratio of faculty to students in each competency-based education program, an analysis of transfer credits, and procedures to verify that the student who registers in a competency-based course is the same student who participates in and completes the program.
This commission decision doesn’t affect any programs currently being offered or those that have recently been approved, including the master’s in healthcare administration approved by the Board of Trustees in September, Warren said.
“The only thing that has actually changed is that they have asked us to come to their April commission meeting to discuss the findings of the site visit,” she said.
