Helping Colleges Move Beyond the Credit Hour

In the delicate process of reforming how colleges measure learning, Amy Laitinen’s job sometimes feels like marriage counseling. One of her main issues these days: competency-based education. … Ms. Laitinen’s own higher education began at Miami Dade Community College, which she attended after finishing 113th out of 121 students in her high-school class. (“I was sort of a rebellious kid,” she says.) After earning an associate degree, she enrolled at the New College of Florida, a public liberal-arts institution that she describes as a “life-changing institution.”