Empowered Learning is Rasmussen's competency-based model. A course is built from six projects, each tied to an employer-approved skill, plus a seventh final that combines them, and you prove what you can do rather than sit traditional exams. You see the grading rubric from day one, work at your own pace with no weekly deadlines, and keep enrollment active by meeting 14-day attendance windows. Each rubric criterion scores 4, 3, 2, or 1, and here is the rule that catches everyone: the deliverable is scored at its lowest criterion, not the average, and every criterion must reach at least a 2 to pass. You can resubmit after feedback, so a low row is fixable if you spend the attempt well.
What Empowered Learning actually is
Rasmussen brands its competency-based courses as Empowered Learning, and the idea underneath is straightforward: you demonstrate a skill through authentic work instead of answering questions about it. Faculty describe it as focusing on doing rather than knowing, and the catalog marks these courses in italics so you can tell them apart. Every master's course runs on this model in 11-week terms, and many undergraduate courses do as well. The shift trips people up because the habits that earned grades in a lecture-and-exam school, cramming, partial credit, averaging your way to a B, do not transfer. The model rewards a different discipline, and the students who name that early stop losing grades to it.
The seven-project shape
Each course publishes its full set of deliverables up front: six projects, each mapped to a specific employer-approved competency, plus a final project that recombines those competencies into one artifact. There is no textbook march and no weekly quiz rhythm; the projects are the course. Because they are released together, a planner can date all seven in the first week and own the term, while a student who waits meets the same seven stacked against the deadline. The CBE project manual covers the drafting method in depth; the structural point here is that the whole course is visible on day one, which is a gift if you use it.
The 4-3-2-1 scale and the lowest row
| Competency score | Percentage band | Letter |
|---|---|---|
| 4 | 94 to 100 | A |
| 3 | 85 to 93 | B |
| 2 | 78 to 84 | C |
| 1 | below 78 | Not passing |
Two rules do the damage. Passing needs at least a 2 on every criterion, and the deliverable records at its lowest criterion rather than an average. A project marked 4, 4, 4, 4, and 2 posts as a 2, a C, no matter how strong the other rows read. The grading manual lays out both scales side by side, but the working takeaway is that your weakest row is your grade, so your weakest row deserves your first and best effort.
Pace, windows, and resubmission
Inside the term you set the tempo. There are no weekly due dates and you need not tackle projects in order, though the university uses 14-day attendance windows to confirm you are still active, so a fortnight of silence is the thing to avoid. When a deliverable comes back, you can submit it again after reading the feedback, within the published attempt limits, which turns a low criterion into a fixable problem rather than a final verdict. The strategic version of that freedom is simple: plan the term as a whole, protect your attempts, and never spend the last one on a project you have not truly repaired.
How it differs from standard courses
Standard Rasmussen courses keep the familiar machinery: letter grades, exams, quizzes, papers, and lab co-requisites on roughly 11-week quarters. Empowered Learning replaces exams with projects and averages with the lowest-criterion rule, which changes how you triage a busy term. A struggling standard course is often rescued by grinding points; a struggling competency course is rescued by finding and lifting the one weak rubric row. If your program is nursing, note that even standard nursing courses add the 78 percent exam gate, a separate rule detailed in the exam-gate math.
Where tutoring support fits
Competency work is teachable, and that is exactly what our tutors do: read the rubric with you, find the row most likely to sink the score, and coach a draft that clears every criterion at the top band. When feedback names a weak row, we help you build the resubmission that answers it directly rather than cosmetically. The pace freedom of the model pairs naturally with an open expedite plan, projects back in 24 to 48 hours so a subscription term keeps moving, and any proctored element stays yours to complete. The first sample is free, scored against your real rubric so you can see the lowest-row logic before you commit.
See the lowest-row method on your project
Send the course, project number, and rubric. A draft with every criterion cleared comes back in 24 to 48 hours, first sample free.
Sources and verification
Facts on this page come from official and independent sources, and anything that matters is worth checking against the originals:
- www.rasmussen.edu/student-experience/empowered-learning: Rasmussen's official Empowered Learning pages, source for the project structure and attendance windows
- www.rasmussen.edu/degrees/course-catalog: the official course catalog, source for the grading scale and conversion bands
- www.rasmussen.edu/tuition: official subscription and per-credit tuition published by Rasmussen
- www.hlcommission.org: Higher Learning Commission, the institutional accreditor
- www.ccneaccreditation.org: Commission on Collegiate Nursing Education, the nursing accreditor
- apastyle.apa.org: APA Style, the official style authority behind the formatting rules