Avatar Virtual Learning - No school, no faculty, no tuition

ORLANDO, Fla. - Aug. 31, 2015 - PRLog -- One upon a time, in a school not so far away...

A small group of professors got together to talk about the student loan crisis.  This was not a new topic  for them, but one that in the last few years had gotten to be more of a concern.  After spending their careers teaching students while watching them struggling with their college costs and student loan payments, the group knew that there was a desperate need to find a solution.  The group had stood by and watched students give up, drop out or not even get past the school's finance office for admittance. This made the group realized that the main issue the students faced financially was not in the college loans themselves but the high amounts that students needed to get a college degree.

Avatar's raising of $50k is to create a virtual college learning environment so the students can cut down on the number of college classes that they needed to pay.  It may not seem like the type of endeavor that would have potential to effect the 1.2 trillion dollar student loan crisis but Avatar's team feel differently. “We at Avatar believe that the first thing to do for the problem is to provide an alternative to what created the issue in the first place.”  This is not the sort of idea that Congress or bankers would suggest but is the sort that an educator could conceive of.  The idea is built on the realization that all education is at heart self-education. That the purpose of college should be to direct and guide  the student to the resources and skills they need.

Avatar Virtual Learning is based on the concept of mastery of learning and works by leveraging the online class format now so prevalent in the modern college education system.  Avatar would develop these courses tailored to the College Board Examination Program (CLEP).  This would provide a replacement for the core college course track used by degree programs.  Each course within the Avatar system has the goal of the student successfully passing a specific CLEP exam to gain tuition credit. There are 34 different CLEP examinations available, each of which is the equivalent of 3 to 12 college credits.   Almost all accredited universities (29,000 of them) fully recognize a passing score on a CLEP test as full credit toward their degree programs.  The student that attends the Avatar program will be able to test out of up to 50% to 75% of their total college tuition cost.

The Avatar team's plan is to raise enough capital to cover the initial infrastructure, site construction, media and the 34 initial course tracks. Students wishing to take the Avatar approach will not need to deal with administrative bureaucracy or financial aid barriers for college entry.  There is no the admission process,  student affairs, course offerings,  schedules or other administrative overhead.  All a student needs to get started is to register on the www.AvatarVirtualLearning.com, take an optional evaluation exam to see where they are academically and start on the self-paced course sequence they are interested in.  Avatar will monitor and guide the student  through the appropriate course sequence.  When the student feels ready they can schedule for CLEP testing at a local testing center or at the college that they intend to complete their degree from.

In exchange for pledging to the project, backers can gain access to a variety of rewards including the chance to have early access to the Virtual Learning site.  A pledge of $25 gets an official Avatar Study Buddy multi-color highlighter and computer brush. With a pledge of $50 they get an official Avatar Happy Hub Guy, a 4-port USB hub. Pledges of a $100 or more gets them a one year membership to Avatar Learning site.  They can use for themselves or give as a gift to a student.

For more information, please visit the crowd funding page at indiegogo.com or contact the team below.

Contact Information

Team Members:

Prof. David Gross
Prof. John Frantz
Proct. Hassania Aboutayeb