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Perspectives on Online and Professional Education
from UPCEA’s Research and Consulting Experts

What Higher Education Leaders Can Learn from NGA’s Intersectional Policy Lab

September 8, 2025

In late August, I had the opportunity to join the National Governors Association’s Intersectional Policy Lab on Non-Degree Credentials and Skills-Based Practices in Minneapolis. This first in-person gathering of NGA’s Data and Non-Degree Credential Learning Community and Skills in the States Community of Practice brought together state leaders, researchers, foundations, and employers for two days…

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AI Payoff vs. the Web: What It Means for Higher Ed

September 3, 2025

When the New York Times ran a piece in August pointing out that companies are throwing billions into AI with little to show for it, I had déjà vu. It took me right back to the late 1990s, when everyone thought the web would change everything overnight. It did change everything—but not before years of…

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Unique biweekly insights and news review from Ray Schroeder, Senior Fellow at UPCEA

AI Companies Roll out Educational Tools

September 4, 2025

Fall semesters are just beginning and the companies offering three leading AI models: Gemini by Google, Claude by Anthropic and ChatGPT by OpenAI have rolled out tools to facilitate AI-enhanced learning. Here’s a comparison and how to get them. Each of the three leading AI providers has taken a somewhat different approach to providing an…

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AI Can Facilitate Mastery Learning in Higher Education

August 21, 2025

Learning in contemporary higher education is rooted deeply in calendars and time rather than mastery of the topic of the learning. With an inflexible semester or quarter calendar and an often-inflexible schedule and length of meeting times, learners are marched through the system in the orderly method of an assembly line. As long as I…

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Your one-stop shop for the latest Association happenings, policy updates, plus thoughts from the desk of CEO Bob Hansen.

UPCEA Recognizes the 2023 Distance Teaching & Learning Conference and Summit for Online Leadership and Administration Award Recipients

6 Individuals Receive Honors MADISON, WI (July 26, 2023) – UPCEA, the online and professional education association, is pleased to recognize the recipients of this year’s awards, presented at the Distance Teaching & Learning (DT&L) Conference and Summit for Online Leadership and Administration (SOLA+R).  Award recipients were honored today at the DT&L and SOLA+R conference…

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New Research from UPCEA, AACRAO, and Modern Campus Shows Barriers Affecting Effective Collaboration between Academic Registrars and PCE Units

Benchmark Survey Addresses Challenges and Opportunities Faced by Professional and Continuing Education Units and Traditional Academic Programs  Washington, DC (July 24, 2023) – UPCEA, the online and professional education association, the American Association of Collegiate Registrars and Admissions Officers (AACRAO), and Modern Campus recently partnered on a survey of their respective undergraduate-serving institutional members in…

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Affirmative Action and Student Debt Forgiveness Program Blocked by Supreme Court | Policy Matters (June 2023)

Major Updates Supreme Court Strikes Down Race-Based Admissions for Colleges and Universities On Thursday, June 29th, the Supreme Court rejected the constitutionality of race-based admissions within two cases involving Harvard University and the University of North Carolina. Stating that the affirmative action admissions practices are unlawful, the Court has decided that these sorts of targeted…

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ED Releases Proposed Gainful Employment, Certification Procedures, HEERF, and Second Chance Pell; Public Comments Open With Multiple Deadlines | Policy Matters (May 2023)

Major Updates Department of Education Releases Proposed Gainful Employment, Financial Responsibility, Administrative Capability, Certification Procedures, and Ability-to-Benefit Regulations – Public Comment Due June 20 The Department of Education has released the long-anticipated retooling of the Gainful Employment (GE) rule following work during the 2021-2022 Negotiated Rulemaking. Current law requires that certificate programs at all institutions…

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Musings on trends and updates from UPCEA CEO Bob Hansen.

Foreword by Bob Hansen Featured in The COLO Guidebook

July 10, 2025

We are pleased to share the foreword by UPCEA CEO Bob Hansen from the newly released Chief Online Learning Officers’ Guidebook: A Framework for Strategy and Practice in Higher Education. The guidebook, now available from Routledge in paperback, hardback, and eBook formats, provides a comprehensive framework for today’s online learning leaders. Learn more and purchase…

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A new direction for the Distance Teaching and Learning Conference

November 7, 2024

Over the last three years, UPCEA engaged in an innovative partnership with the University of Wisconsin–Madison to enable the latter’s Distance Teaching and Learning (DT&L) conference to continue under UPCEA’s leadership. The partnership’s goals included making this valuable event for the distance learning community more sustainable and accessible to online practitioners focused on teaching and…

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Valuable insights from UPCEA's trusted corporate partners.

Building Better Learners, Educators, and Outcomes with Scenario-Based Learning

August 25, 2025

Since the 1980s, higher education has steadily shifted from passive lectures to more active, student-centered learning. As Bonwell and Eison noted in Active Learning: Creating Excitement in the Classroom, this shift not only reinforces content mastery but also fosters critical thinking and problem-solving. Cynthia J. Brame, writing for Vanderbilt’s Center for Teaching, defines active learning…

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Building the Cyber Workforce the Future Can’t Live Without

August 11, 2025

Turn learners into the cyber pros every employer is chasing with stackable, multi-credential pathways The Cyber Talent Gap Is a Moving Target Picture this: the bad guys keep upgrading their playbook, but the good guys are still running last season’s plays. That’s the cyber talent gap in a nutshell. It’s not just about more people…

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