Cornerstone University President Gerson Moreno-Riaño describes the school's SOAR program, which offers bachelor's and master's degrees in business through a mobile app.
Americans who want to earn degrees at their own pace can now do so at their own pace cell phones after Cornerstone University offered degrees in its business program to provide students who choose a self-paced program that can be completed on a smartphone.
“We developed the nation's first mobile platform to deliver associate degrees and master's degrees, all from your mobile phone,” Cornerstone University President Gerson Moreno-Riaño told FOX Business in an interview.
Moreno-Riaño said the program started in August and has about 250 students enrolled. Students in what is known as the SOAR program can earn an associate's or bachelor's degree in strategic business management, or a master's degree in organizational leadership.
“One of the good things we have seen is that the monthly persistence rate is 91%, so students are continuing with this and they are completing it,” he said, adding that some students who transferred to other credits to complete their degree will be the first to graduate this year.
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The SOAR system allows students to interact with learning materials in small portions on their smartphones. (Stock)
Moreno-Riaño said Cornerstone's price for its SOAR the highest rank is $24,000 from start to finish, while a master's degree is $12,000.
“More than half of our students enrolled in this program are now not paying tuition fees due to tuition fees and grants.”
“We see this as an opportunity to address the gap in our country now when it comes to education, and to be honest, we are convinced that the current American infrastructure cannot meet this challenge. It was built for what I call traditional brick and mortar students,” he said.
“We thought, how can we take this ubiquitous piece of technology that everyone has, that everyone spends so much time on? On average, in our country, we're talking about more than four hours a day where adults are sitting. mobile devices.”
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Cornerstone University's SOAR degree program allows students to earn degrees through their mobile devices without the traditional classroom. (Stock)
Moreno-Riaño said Cornerstone tested the app for more than a year with about 120 students, which informed the university's process for revising and rolling out the SOAR app.
He said Cornerstone is particularly concerned about how it reaches non-traditional students and discouraged students, some of whom have not tried to pursue a degree while others have tried the traditional college experience and are unwilling to return.
Moreno-Riaño said that when Cornerstone mapped out the program, he understood that the traditional 120-credit hour curriculum degree program couldn't be mapped to a mobile app, so the school tried to release those lessons into “lumps of instructional content.”
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Cornerstone University's SOAR program offers bachelor's and master's degrees in business, Moreno-Riaño said. (Stock)
“In the application, there will be small lectures, podcasts, book reviews, discussions, all with carefully designed learning objectives throughout the program,” said Moreno-Riaño, explaining that some of the lectures may be between 5 and 10 minutes.
“We have built-in mini-tests that are quickly edited and feedback is provided to the student.”
Some of the first graduates of the program told Moreno-Riaño that they listened to some of the lessons while to go to workwhen we are traveling or doing household chores.
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“It allows them to, in fact, continue the learning experience within a complex program because we deconstruct, deconstruct, reframe and maintain engagement goals so students can stay engaged and engaged,” he said.
