Michael Varno didn’t like school when he was growing up. But after he graduated from high school, Varno got an IT job with the U.S. Department of Treasury and his career took off.
“After awhile, I wanted to get my bachelor’s degree in order to move into a higher position, but I was traveling two or three weeks out of the month,” said Varno, an Atlanta resident.
Not able to go the traditional route for college, Varno heard about Western Governors University (WGU) from a co-worker. After discovering that he could likely get credit for what he already knew and could work at his own pace, Varno enrolled.
Western Governors University is a nonprofit online university founded and supported by 19 governors. The idea came from a 1995 meeting of the Western Governors Association.
“Mike Leavitt, [then] governor of Utah, was looking for a way to make education more effective and saw that distance-learning technologies could be the answer to providing education to a rapidly growing population, with limited public funds,” said Greg Fowler, associate provost for development and program management at WGU.
The governors collaborated to establish a nonprofit online university that would be fully accredited, student-focused and affordable.
“In talking to the business community we learned that many college graduates had knowledge, but not enough real skills,” Fowler said. “The governors decided that student competencies — rather than seat-time in the classroom — would be the measure of student outcomes.
“Students must demonstrate competence in every unit they take, through either testing or completing performance tasks.”
The university uses computer simulation, mails laboratory experiments and places students in teaching or clinical settings near their homes.
With his computer skills and knowledge, Varno progressed through classes and quickly passed many competency exams.
“I choose not to have a social life because the degree was my focus. I worked and then came home and went to school online. I wrote a lot of papers and took a lot of exams with WGU proctors at Georgia Tech and Southern Polytechnic [State University],” he said. “Being able to pass so many computer certifications quickly really jump-started my education and motivated me to keep going. It was an excellent experience.”
Varno passed 96 of the 121 required competency units in just eight months. He earned his bachelor’s degree in information technology (with a security emphasis) last May and spoke at the commencement ceremony in Salt Lake City in July. Earning eight IT certifications at the same time was “icing on the cake,” he said.
“I spoke right after the U.S. undersecretary of education, Martha Kanter, and right before the governor of Utah, and it was a real honor to represent the school that is helping me reach my life goals,” he said.
Varno, who has since been promoted to an IT operations manager with the U.S. Department of Treasury, is enrolled in WGU again, this time to earn an MBA.
Enrollment at WGU has grown from 5,000 in 1997 to 20,000 today. The school enrolls about 1,000 to 1,500 new students per month; many transfer from other institutions.
“They’re looking to advance in their careers or to get into a different field of work,” Fowler said. “They come to us because we offer a flexible, cost-effective education that is reputable. We’re an NCATE [National Council for Accreditation of Teacher Education] teachers college, for instance.
“People have a lot of things going on in their lives these days. They’re too busy to attend brick-and-mortar classes. About 80 percent of our students have a job, and 70 percent of them work full time. We draw students from all 50 states, and our fourth-largest student population comes from Georgia.”
WGU offers bachelor’s and master’s degrees in its four colleges: Teachers College, College of Business, College of Information Technology and College of Health Professions.
The university operates on a mentor model. In addition to course instructors, students have mentors who advise them about courses and university resources. Course mentors — experts with the highest degree in a given field of study — are available to help students with subject-matter problems.
“Because we’re nonprofit, we can channel our investments back into our students and into technology learning resources to keep tuition low,” Fowler said. “We can take on more students without worrying about building new buildings or exploding faculty salaries.”
Tuition is about $6,000 a year. Students can apply for Federal Student Financial Aid and university scholarships.
“Our best marketing tool is our graduates. There are 8,000 of them now, and employers rate their skills as good or better than graduates from traditional colleges,” Fowler said.
For information, call 801-274-3280 or go to www.wgu.edu.
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