Spotlight 4 Success
We're shining a light on education success stories and talking about current trends and topics of importance to the education community. Join us in conversation!
Spotlight 4 Success
Debt-Free Teaching: The WGU Way
Most education professionals might be surprised to learn that WGU has become North America's largest provider of teaching degrees, with their graduates representing an impressive 5% of America's teaching workforce. What drives this success? Their competency-based online model allows working professionals to advance their education affordably and at their own pace. For paraprofessionals seeking teacher certification or current teachers pursuing advanced credentials, WGU offers a debt-minimizing pathway to career advancement.
Welcome to Spotlight for Success by American Book Company. I am here with Tully Lael with Western Governors University. Hello, tully. Hey, thanks for having me appreciate it. Yes, tully, can you tell us a little bit about Western Governors University and what y'all are doing here at Gale?
Speaker 2:I'm very happy to talk about it. That's what I'm here to do, in fact is to represent Western Governors University at the Gale Conference. We have so many different school districts throughout the state of Georgia that Western Governors University partners with to provide education opportunities for paraprofessionals who want to get into teaching, existing teachers who want to grow their degree and further their education, and so I can tell you Western Governors University is now the largest provider for teaching degrees in North America. 5% of all teachers in the country have a degree from Western Governors University, and yet we find so many people here maybe haven't heard of WGU, or WGU means another university here in Georgia and so it's our opportunity to be here and just get the word out that when teachers want to find a degree option that's very, very affordable, very credible, that they can do on their own online, we're a great option for a lot of our school district partners out there.
Speaker 1:That's wonderful. Tully, can you tell us a little bit about what brought you to Western Governors University?
Speaker 2:I'm happy to. I've been at WGU now for 10 years and really what appealed to me from the beginning was the mission of WGU. We were talking earlier today in fact about how hard it is for teachers who start their career off with huge amounts of debt student loan, debt that can last for a lifetime and most teachers that I know got into the profession because of a passion for students or education, not because of a huge salary.
Speaker 1:At American Book Company in Woodstock, Georgia, we are committed to your students' success. As you can see behind me, we have our workbooks and we have online testing and e-books that go on fancy iPads over here, for instance. They're all designed to help your students succeed and have higher test scores on their high-stakes assessments. Give us a call 888-264-5877, or find us on the web, abck1212.com, and you can receive a free trial or a free preview book of your choice. Hope to hear from you soon. Bye-bye.
Speaker 2:Right. Yet they're so highly educated that it can be very difficult for teachers to start with crippling student loan debt. Wgu is so affordable that it allows our teachers to get a credible degree, do it at their own pace, and when I heard about that mission, I actually learned about it through a friend and learned about the go at your own pace model, where they can do competency-based learning online. It really appealed to me. I said I want to be a part of that, I want to learn more about it and in that time, the last 10 years, I've had the opportunity to work with school districts all over the nation, so that is fantastic.
Speaker 1:Is there anything else you'd like to share with the Gale community?
Speaker 2:Well, right now we're actually here to promote a scholarship that's available for our teachers that just got announced for the new year. It's an $8,000 scholarship for teachers only only for our students who are going into the school of education, and the whole purpose of it is to really get the word out about now's the time to go back. We have a huge teacher shortage across the country, but specifically here in Georgia. I know Georgia ranks in the bottom 10 of all states for teacher shortages, and so we're here to try and fill that gap and, yeah, happy to answer questions for our folks that are out here visiting. Thank you for helping me get the word out and, yeah, I'm really happy to be here.
Speaker 1:That's fantastic. Can you tell us the website so they can find out about the scholarship?
Speaker 2:Absolutely so well, I tell my students all the time. If you Google some of the happiest students on earth, usually WGU comes up as one of the first finds. But yeah, if you go to westerngovernorsuniversityedu, you'll find all the information you need about WGU, about our teachers college. You can get in there and look at scholarships online and all the different lists of degree programs in the School of Education.
Speaker 1:Wow, that's wonderful Tully. Well, once again, that's Tully Lael with Western Governors University. Thank you so much for being on the show. Thank you for having me. I appreciate it All right, bye, thank you.