The University of Maine at Presque Isle can’t offer any new YourPace competency-based programs without accreditor approval, according to the New England Commission of Higher Education.
“We didn’t suspend it,” commission President Larry Schall said. “We suspended any expansion of it — new programs, new locations — until they appear before us in the spring.”
The news comes after an investigation, launched in April after a Washington Post article criticized the competency-based programs and suggested students were obtaining degrees in weeks rather than years.
The commission asked the University of Maine System to answer questions about YourPace, and was to review the system’s 20-page response, its president, Larry Schall, said earlier this month.
About 8,000 students have come through YourPace since January, and the program accounts for the majority of this fall’s enrollment, UMPI President Ray Rice previously told the Bangor Daily News.
BDN writer Kathleen Phalen Tomaselli contributed to this report.
Correction: An earlier version of the article misstated what the commission suspended. It is suspending any expansion of the YourPace offerings.
