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��������Ŀ��(bi��o)��W(xu��)Ӣ�Z������x1����3�棩��������Georgetown has long enjoyed a top twenty-five spot in the U.S.News &World Report rankings and a stellar reputation among prospective students��who often choose between it and the top Ivy League universities. But Georgetown��s endowment of around $ 1.4 billion pales in comparison to that ofthe University of Pennsylvania ��$10 billion���� Princeton��$9 billion���� orStanford ��$ 22 billion��. Without that kind of financial cushion�� Georgetown��s biggest boosters worry it may not continue to attract top students in the future��especially with an annual price tag of more than $ 60��000.����The ��red house���� as it is known around campus�� opened in 2014 as anincubator to rethink the university��s future. The cramped house is filled withposters dotted with sticky notes and elaborate drawings of models showing howstudents move through their undergraduate years. The chief architect of whathappens in the house is Randy Bass�� the vice provost of education and a popularfigure on campus who still teaches undergraduates. Bass�� who has a salt-and-pepper beard and a dry sense of humor�� has focused much of his work in the last year on finding an avenue to increase the value of a Georgetown degree.����Bass told me higher education suffers from a measurement problem. ��We only charge for a portion of what students see as the value of moving to a degree���� he said. Tuition is tied to the credit hour�� and 120 earns a bachelor��sdegree. But the credit hour doesn��t actually measure how much students learn.It��s simply an arbitrary measure of time spent in a seat�� and it certainly doesn��t tell employers much about the college graduates they��re hiring except that they had the discipline to make it through four years of courses.����What��s more�� a degree based on time spent in a seat is inefficient because it forces all students to follow a single route to graduation ��which�� as we��ve seen��is not how the workplace operates��.A new degree taking shape at Georgetown aims to strike out those inefficiencies and�� at the same time�� marry two competing interests�� job skills and education. It would combine a liberal arts bachelor��s degree with a vocational master��s degree�� all within the time frame of four years. Several universities already offer combined degrees�� of course��but they typically take five years�� and the master��s experience is usually bolted on at the very end�� almost as an afterthought.����Instead�� Georgetown is rethinking the entire track to the degree.Professors have identified the competencies students need to learn for the merged undergraduate and graduate degrees. At most colleges�� such competencies are tied to a course. Sit in a fifteen-week class and you��ve achieved the goal. By identifying the competencies associated with a degree��Georgetown can move away from the course as the sole measure of learning.Students could earn a competency in a fraction of a course or�� more important��outside the walls of the university in internships or projects.������That stuff that has been on the margins of the experience now are the bread and butter of this new degree���� Bass said. ��They are at the center of what we do.����������