Hey there. How are you?
You know what question I get A LOT: What does Ben Blair do for work? And here's the answer: A few years ago Ben launched a startup: a super-affordable online school called Newlane University. The goal was to create the most affordable, respected online university, with international accreditation, so that students anywhere in the world could attend and earn a 4-year U.S. degree.
The short story on Newlane is:
•An Associate Degree is $1500, and a Bachelor’s Degree is $1500. That means you could do a full four-year degree for $3000.
•It’s a debt-free college education, with no huge lump sums of money required. Instead, you register for $249 then payments are $40/month until you reach the $1500 degree cost.
•Yes, if you’ve already done some college courses, you may be able to transfer your credits(!) and earn your degree even faster. (Email contact@newlane.edu to find out if your credits are transfer eligible.)
•The school is built on Competency-Based Learning, which means students don't pass a class until they've actually learned everything they are supposed to learn — it eliminates the concept of doing the bare minimum to get a passing C.
•In January, Newlane achieved International Accreditation with ASIC, which is a really big deal. The accreditation process is INTENSE. Much more intense than I would have guessed. The process is ongoing over multiple years and requires a huge investment of dedication, time, and money. Founding and building a university from scratch, and earning ASIC accreditation, is incredible.
Announcing: Newlane Global Scholarship Fund
Here’s the reason Newlane is on my mind today: One of the most frequent questions Newlane has received is: How can I give a scholarship? So many people want to support Newlane, but already have a degree so aren’t looking to enroll — they just want to send money to support Newlane’s mission (check out the Newlane Manifesto). And because Newlane is so affordable, people have realized their donation could fund someone’s entire university education. It’s amazing.
So Newlane has been trying to figure out the best way to offer a scholarship option, and they’ve come up with something really cool. They’ve teamed up with Haiti Partners to create a Newlane Global Scholarship Fund! You can read the announcement on Newlane’s website, or on Haiti Partner’s website.
Here’s some Q&A with Ben about the new Scholarship Fund:
Let’s start with: How does this work?
A donor sends money to Haiti Partners for the Newlane Global Scholarship Fund. It can be any sum — $5, $10, $25, $50, $100. It all helps. Seriously. $40 funds an entire month of university education for a student; $1500 funds a 2-year degree (or a 4-year degree if the student already has 60 or more credits), $3000 funds a full 4-year degree.
10% of the donation goes directly to Haiti Partners. 90% of the donation goes directly to a student’s Newlane education.
Why team up with Haiti Partners?
We partnered with Haiti Partners for several reasons: First, Haiti Partners is a very respected non-profit with certified 501c3 status. Which means your scholarship donation is tax-free in the U.S.. And second, as a family, Gabrielle and I have supported Haiti Partners for many years now. We believe in what they are doing and know how important that work is, and how effective they are at their work, and are always looking for ways to support their work.
Is my scholarship donation tax deductible?
Yes, if you are a U.S. taxpayer, your scholarship donation will be fully tax deductible.
Who benefits? Are the scholarships just for Haitians?
This Newlane Global Scholarship Fund sponsors Newlane students all over the world, including the U.S.. Haitian students are welcome to apply, but the funds are not set aside specifically for them. On the Newlane Scholarship page, you can find three examples of current Scholarship Recipients.
How can I give a scholarship?
It’s super easy. Head to the Haiti Partners + Newlane Global Scholarship Fund donation page. You can choose a one-time donation, or a recurring donation (every month, or every six months, or whatever timing you choose). You can pay with a credit card, bank transfer, or Google Pay. If you have any questions, please reach out to me: ben@newlane.edu
How much do I need to donate?
You can donate any amount you would like — even small donations add up! Every time donations reach $1500 total, it will provide another full scholarship for a student to earn a degree through Newlane. You can choose a one time scholarship donation, or even a small monthly donation.
One of the coolest things about donating to the Newlane Global Scholarship fund is that, because their tuition is already super affordable, your donation goes much further than it could at a traditional university — for $1500 you can sponsor a college degree! That’s just not possible at a traditional university. Along these lines, when looking ahead, we anticipate that individuals could set up an endowment that would fund students in perpetuity for a fraction of the cost of a single semester scholarship at another university.
How can I get a scholarship?
If you are interested in applying for a scholarship, head to the scholarship application page to get started. Applications are reviewed by the Newlane Scholarship committee, and they work hard to make sure that any committed student who wants to attend Newlane, can do so.
Is Newlane New-to-You? Here’s the Longer Story
In January, when Newlane first achieved International Accreditation, I interviewed Ben and asked him all the questions that come up about Newlane. Here’s our Q&A:
For those who don’t know you, give us a little bit about your background and how it led to starting a university.
My background is in philosophy and education. I did a Philosophy BA at BYU for undergrad, then, when we moved to New York, I did two Masters degrees and a PhD in Philosophy & Education at Columbia University. I am very conscious about the rising costs of college — especially so as a father of six.
Give us a short overview of what Newlane University offers.
Newlane University makes earning a 4-year, U.S. degree accessible to students of all budgets, living anywhere in the world. If you have a reliable internet connection, you can make this happen.
Newlane was created from an abundance mindset. It’s common knowledge that everything you need to learn to be e.g., a rocket scientist is available online, for free. Which means a degree should be very affordable! Newlane set out to organize those free learning resources into degrees, and give students a reliable way to confirm and demonstrate what they’ve learned, making a degree available at the lowest cost possible.
How much does it cost?
The quick answer: $1500 per degree.
The longer answer: Our pricing is very different than any other university in existence. You pay a one-time registration fee of $249, that gives you access to all the courses, learning materials, the experts, the assessments, the library subscription, etc.. Then you pay $40/month. Once you’ve reached $1500 in monthly payments, the monthly charges will stop — even if you’re still working on your degree. You can continue working on your degree with no further monthly charges.
You can pause or stop the $40/month and take a leave of absence if needed. Maybe you had a death in the family and won’t be in the mindset to work on school for a few months. No problem.
I’ll explain how it works:
-If you are starting from scratch, you’ll begin with an Associates Degree, which costs $1500.
-If you want to continue and earn a Bachelor’s degree, that costs another $1500 — or $3000 total for a 4-year degree.
-If you already have an Associates Degree, then you can transfer that degree to Newlane, and you just need to earn the Bachelors Degree, which would cost $1500 total.
-If you already have a Bachelors Degree, and want to earn another one with Newlane, the cost of that second Bachelors Degree would be $1500 total.
-In summary: the price is $1500 per degree.
-In each of these cases, you’re charged $40 per month, and not a flat fee of $1500. Once you hit $1500, the monthly charges and payments stop, but you can continue working on your degree. (You can find more info about our pricing on the Newlane Tuition and Fees page.) The next most affordable degree we’ve seen is around $5000.
What about transfer credit? What if a student took a bunch of college courses, but never finished their degree?
We love giving transfer credits. There are a lot of people who completed some college work, but for whatever reason, never finished college, and they feel held back in some ways. We offer a great solution to help them. Students can submit their transcript from any accredited college (or AP courses!), and Newlane will typically accept any courses with a passing grade (C or above). Transfer credit is a great way to speed up the time it takes to earn a degree.
Is Newlane University accredited?
Yes! We started by tackling International Accreditation, because we have students in countries all over the world. We are accredited internationally by ASIC, a well-established accrediting agency based in the UK. You can read about them here.
You mentioned students from around the world — from which countries?
We have students in Argentina, Canada, Mexico, Thailand, Vietnam, Italy, Zambia, UK, and more. It’s so great! But keep in mind, our school is still very young and small. So our total number of students at the moment is about 60 students.
We don’t mean to keep the enrollment small. We intentionally haven’t done any marketing until we achieved the ASIC accreditation. In fact, the students who have found us and enrolled, have mostly come through random searches for “affordable online degrees”. We’re looking forward to getting the word out about Newlane and enrolling more students who could benefit from our services.
What degrees do you currently offer?
We offer an Associate Degree in General Studies, and we offer a Bachelor’s Degree in Philosophy.
We have intentionally kept our degree offerings to the bare minimum as we go through the accreditation process. But as we finish that up, we plan to add new degrees and we’re very excited about that. We project adding Business, Computer Science, Graphic Design, and Education degrees as soon as possible.
Why did you launch with a Philosophy Degree?
A few reasons: 1) We wanted to make it clear from the beginning that we are a serious-minded institution of higher learning, and not a diploma-mill or just a job-training certificate. Philosophy is one of the oldest degrees and signifies a true interest in learning.
2) A Philosophy Degree gives you skills in critical thinking, being able to read well, write well, and express yourself clearly, how to construct and critique arguments — skills that are valuable no matter what you decide to do after you earn your degree.
3) A Philosophy Degree is one of the best preparations for graduate programs, including law school, business school, and most any liberal arts advanced degree.
Also, I was charged with building the first degree, and Philosophy is my personal area of expertise.
What kind of students are you looking for?
While students currently enrolled at traditional universities are welcome to transfer to Newlane, you might be surprised to hear they are not actually who we had in mind when we built this school.
When you look at a piechart of all students enrolled in colleges and universities in the U.S., it is quite shocking. All the universities you’ve heard of? The ivy-leagues, the state schools? They only account for ~30% of students enrolled. The rest of the students in the pie chart attend colleges that most of us have never heard of — you see them off the side of the freeway in nondescript buildings. And a good portion of those are scams. The scammy programs tend to tie their tuition costs to the maximum allowable student loan levels, and pile their students up with tuition-based debt.
We would love to see those students come to Newlane instead, where they will never need to go into debt for a degree.
But Newlane is not just for U.S. students! As I mentioned, we have students from all over the world. In many places, a U.S. degree is considered very valuable, but is typically out of reach for all but the most wealthy. Just getting a student visa to come to the U.S. is a daunting and expensive project. And international students often have to pay the inflated U.S. tuition rates, plus total housing costs, up front, without access to student loan programs. So it’s just not feasible for most people in the world.
But with Newlane, anyone with a reliable internet connection — no matter where in the world they are based — can now access a U.S. college degree.
What is it like taking classes at Newlane?
This might be my favorite question, because we’ve built this from scratch. All classes on Newlane are made from course objectives. Course objectives are a list of specific things a student needs to learn in order to pass a class.
For example, in a Biology 101 class, one of the course objectives could be: Explain the process of photosynthesis.
So a student enrolls in a class, and they’ll see the list of objectives. If they click on an objective, there will be resources and links that our professors have vetted, where they can learn that objective. The resources can be anything — youtube videos, TED talks, journal articles, interactive games, textbooks, etc.. The student can use any of the listed resources, or even come up with their own — like maybe their Aunt is a biology teacher, so they call her up and ask her to teach them about photosynthesis. Students can learn the objective however they see fit.
Once they’ve mastered all the objectives for the course they are enrolled in, they can pass off that course.
What is it like passing classes at Newlane? Are there tests?
Another of my favorite topics! There are 3 phases to passing a course at Newlane. The first phase is self-assessment. Once you learn an objective, you mark it off. Simple as that. It will be as meaningful as you make it.
The second phase is a computer-scored test. The student will answer questions about every single course objective and the computer will automatically score the test and let the student know if there are objectives they need to review. And yes, if students want to cheat here, they can, but it’s not really going to help them, because of phase 3.
The third phase of passing a course is a live video review with a course professor. When the student is ready and feels they’ve learned all the objectives for a course, they set up a live video chat with a course professor. Our professors and subject experts are located all over the world, so you can easily find someone that works with your time zone and schedule.
On the video call, the professor will confirm the students I.D., and then ask the student questions. The questions can be about any of the course objectives. They can be open ended. There can be follow up questions. The student really needs to know those objectives. At the end of the call, the professor will determine one of two things: 1) the student passed the course, or 2) there are objectives the student needs to review.
If the student needs to review objectives, they can do so using whatever resources they prefer, and then set up a new video call. This is so cool! It means students don’t have to re-enroll in the class in a future semester! You don’t get a bad or failing grade.
You mentioned professors all over the world. Tell us more about your professors and subject experts.
Yes, it’s true. Our English-speaking experts are based in Hungary, Belgium, Argentina, China, Canada, India, the U.S., etc.. They are well qualified, thoroughly trained, and tend to use Newlane as a sidegig. (As Newlane grows and enrolls more students, we expect full-time positions will open as well.)
Do students get a transcript?
Yes. And it’s an especially good one. A traditional transcript doesn’t tell you much. It might say Biology 101— B+. But that doesn’t tell you what was actually covered in the course, and which things you learned well (or didn’t learn well — because maybe you missed a couple of classes).
A Newlane University transcript is different. It lists the objectives for each course, so anyone can see exactly what was covered in that class. And since students need to master all course objectives before passing a class at Newlane, the transcript shows exactly what a student mastered as well, (not just what was covered in the class).
Tell me more about students having to master every objective in the course. It’s like they all have to get an A?
It’s called Competency Based learning — students get credit for demonstrating mastery, not just doing assignments or spending time in class. A student doesn’t pass the class until they’ve mastered every objective for that class.
One of the reasons we wanted to start Newlane is because this is a better model of education. The lower cost of our degree is a symptom of a better model, in an environment where we have better access to abundant quality instructional resources.
We’re not the first school to adopt Competency Based Education, but we do think we’re a compelling logical end to that movement.
And don’t be fooled by the price! The low-cost might make you think this is a really easy degree or something you don’t need to take seriously. But that’s not true at all. When building our degrees, we compare and align them with the top universities in the country, so our courses are rigorous, and anticipate serious learning and study by the student.
How long does it take to earn a degree with Newlane?
Newlane classes are designed to take the same amount of hours a traditional college course would require. So a two year degree would take two years. That said, Newlane is totally self-directed and competency-based, so if you want to move through courses quickly, you can! And if you want to take your sweet time, that’s fine too! If a student already knows a lot of the coursework from earlier studies, in theory, they can pass classes more quickly and earn a degree more quickly.
How do I sign up?
We register students every day, all year long. There is no official start to the semester. In fact, there is no semester! You can start whenever you want to. Even today. Go to our Apply Today page to get started or learn more.
Are your own kids enrolled in Newlane?
They are not at the moment. Ralph is studying film at Berkeley, Maude just finished her degree at Berkeley, and Olive is attending film school in Paris.
I hope this answer makes clear that we don’t pretend Newlane is the perfect fit for everyone. Many people benefit by attending traditional universities — including our own kids. But for people where schedule, budget, or geography make enrolling in a traditional university impossible, Newlane is a really terrific alternative, and the most affordable alternative out there.
Anything else people should know? Anything you are excited about that we haven’t covered?
Our school is still young, so we’re listening carefully to students. Our current students are helping us decide what degrees we should offer next and which new features we should implement, or that they find the most valuable. So if you want to influence the direction of Newlane, consider signing up!
Lastly, we are officially trying to get the word out about Newlane. If you have any interest in talking — about student loan debt, about online learning, about Competency Based Education, about this new concept for a university, about rising tuition prices, about educational technology, about educational philosophy — in your podcast or website or newsletter, we would be delighted to answer questions or tell you more. Feel free to reach out.
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Did you make it all the way to the end? Hah! That was a long interview.
What’s your take on the idea of Competency Based Education? Would you appreciate a detailed transcript like Ben described? How would you feel about getting a 4-year degree entirely online and never visiting a college campus? Do you think of yourself as a self-directed learner? Or do you prefer due-dates and deadlines to help you move things along?
I’m really proud of the work everyone at Newlane is doing. Making a university education affordable and accessible is a really big deal, and it’s really important. If you want to support Newlane’s mission, making a donation to the Newlane Global Scholarship Fund is the ideal way to do so. Any amount helps — even small amounts add up! — and you’re directly funding a student’s college degree. Which means you’re changing someone’s life for the better.
Here Are A Few Things I’ve Wanted to Share With You
-“Statistically, we know that once the hands are on the neck, the very next step is homicide,” the domestic violence psychologist Sylvia Vella has said. “They don’t go backwards.” Gabby Petito died of strangulation.
-Last week, a 20-year-old Oklahoma woman was convicted of manslaughter for experiencing a miscarriage at 17 weeks and sentenced to 4 years in state prison.
-This is mind-blowing to watch:
-Laughing so hard at this because first of all, I had no idea there was an account called “Graph Crimes”, and second because the graph is hilarious. It’s trying to illustrate a 5-inch height difference.
-For at least six years, a Texas district clerk divided up jurors by race and geography before assigning them to trial panels (venires). The Texas Rangers are investigating and thousands of verdicts could be challenged.
-A male student, charged with kidnapping and sexual assault, was allowed to play football for Olympic High School in NC. His female classmates led a protest against it — and in response, the school suspended THE GIRLS from playing on THEIR teams.
-A Reuters review of court records shows AT&T played a major role in creating and funding OAN, the conservative network that spreads lies about COVID and the election. AT&T has been a crucial source of funds to OAN, providing tens of millions in revenue.
-Did you know this? I didn’t.
-Easiest Lasagna Ever! Make this recipe with frozen ravioli.
Feel free to share your thoughts in response to anything above. I hope you have a lovely start to the new week.
kisses,
Gabrielle
We at Haiti Partners are thrilled to be in partnership with Newlane University. We believe in the power of education and love Newlane's mission and approach. We're excited about some of the young people in the community of The Children's Academy in Haiti earning degrees. Thank you Ben to you and your team for your vision and work. Thank you Gabby for all your support and your work to make this a more loving, just and beautiful world.