Excelsior College, the world’s largest distance educator of nurses, is being sued by former students alleging the institution did not adequately prepare them for a critical, and pricey, clinical examination.

Inside Higer Ed’s Carl Straumsheim files this report:

In the complaint, filed in a federal district court in New York, 17 former students in Excelsior’s associate degree program in nursing from 11 different states say the college sold them “
an
 ‘educational’
 program
 that
 was
 devoid
 of
 any
 education,
 and
 … an
 ‘objective’
 test,
 which
 was
 anything
 but
 objective.” The students, many of whom have decades of experience in the medical field, are suing Excelsior for breach of contract and deceptive
 or
 misleading
 practices.

The nursing program’s curriculum can be accessed online or, for students without Internet access, as a set of CD-ROMs. Once students have passed several nursing theory exams, completed 21 out of the 31 required credits and taken a computer-based clinical assessment test, they take the college’s Clinical Performance in Nursing Examination. The 17 students, however, say the coursework did not prepare them for the CPNE, and that Excelsior withheld information about the test until they “had
 expended
 resources
 and
 were
 irreversibly
 committed
 to
 completing
 the
 program.”

“Excelsior
 did 
not 
provide 
consumers 
with
 the
 clinical 
education
 that
 it 
promises,” the complaint reads. “
Instead, 
it 
provides 
a 
test.”

Competency-based education has attracted considerable interest lately, but the learning approach is not new territory to Excelsior. The college has been in the field for a long time, and has in fact been cited by some as evidence of the potential for competency-based education.

Still, several states have in recent years raised questions about the preparedness of Excelsior’s graduates. California does not allow recent graduates to apply for registered nurse licenses, for example, and 14 other states require those who have passed the CPNE to log hundreds of hours of experience before becoming eligible.

Some studies have challenged those claims about competency-based education. In one example, the Council on Adult and Experiential Learning in 2012 found Excelsior’s graduates and students from other programs pass licensing exams at the same rate.

In a January 2013 exit survey, several recent graduates of the nursing program at Excelsior singled out the CPNE as the one aspect of the program they would change. Some recommended more practice materials and changing the test from a pass-fail system to a percentage score, while others called it “traumatic” and said it “ruined the [Excelsior College] experience.”

The CPNE costs $2,225 per attempt, and students are given a test date between three and eight months after signing up.