StraighterLine offers students an affordable and convenient pathway to college readiness and helps increase student persistence to graduation. We’ve made it easy for you and your school to refer underprepared or at-risk students to us to help them complete program prerequisites, prepare for the rigors of college, and stay on track for graduation after enrolling.

StraighterLine’s CEO and Founder Burck Smith is proud to be a Partner for Transformation with the Higher Learning Commission (HLC). HLC’s Partners for Transformation is a blue-ribbon think tank tasked with offering innovative ideas on accreditation of colleges and universities.

Though the concept of digital education has existed for more than 30 years, and today 30% of college students have taken at least one distance course, the pricing model for online learning remains largely unchanged.

StraighterLine has been delivering online college courses for over a decade. In that time, we’ve accumulated tons of experience and expertise on what it takes to provide a quality online environment for student success. We’ve worked with thousands of schools, from college presidents and deans to academic advisors and enrollment counselors – and have earned their trust by providing a high-quality online option for their schools. We have helped prepare their students for success in their degree programs, brought back stop-outs, and increased persistence and improved graduation rates.

The Challenge

This StraighterLine partner school is one of the country’s largest online non-profit universities. To be admitted, applicants need to meet prior credit requirements and have proven college-level math and writing skills. Instead of rejecting these applicants who do not meet the prerequisites, the school wanted to provide a path to help them complete their requirements, allowing them to be admitted, and ultimately preparing for them for success in their degree program.

If you ask Dr. Amy Smith, StraighterLine’s new Chief Learning Officer, what gets her out of bed in the morning, the answer is simple: access to higher education for all adult learners.

“I genuinely believe that you should have the opportunity to decide your future,” says Smith, who recently came to StraighterLine from a 25-year-career in academia. “Nobody should say you can't go to college because you took a class when you were 18 at the local community college and got an F.”

The traditional stereotype of an incoming college student is a young person who’s as concerned about their social life as they are about course selection. The reality is that today’s college student doesn’t fit that old stereotype. In fact, almost 35% of today’s incoming students in the U.S. are over the age of 25.