Western Governors University (WGU) is a private, nonprofit, online American university based in Salt Lake City, Utah.

The university was founded by 19 U.S. governors in 1997 after the idea was formulated at a 1995 meeting of the Western Governors Association.

The university uses a competency-based learning model, with students working online.

Scott D. Pulsipher is the current university president, having joined WGU on April 11, 2016; WGU's first president, Robert Mendenhall, is president emeritus and remains a member of WGU's Board of Trustees.

WGU's accreditation is through the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities.

Distance education or distance learning is the education of students who may not always be physically present at a school.

Traditionally this usually involved correspondence courses wherein the student corresponded with the school via post.

Today it involves online education.

Courses that are conducted (51 percent or more) are either hybrid, blended or 100% whole instruction.

Massive open online courses (MOOCs), offering large-scale interactive participation and open access through the World Wide Web or other network technologies, are recent developments in distance education.

A number of other terms (distributed learning, e-learning, online learning, etc) are used roughly synonymously with distance education.

An academic degree is a qualification awarded on successful completion of a course of study in higher education, normally at a college or university.

These institutions commonly offer degrees at various levels, typically including bachelor's, master’s and doctorates, often alongside other academic certificates, and professional degrees.

The most common undergraduate degree is the bachelor's degree, although in some countries lower qualifications are titled degrees (e.g. associate degrees in the US or foundation degrees in the UK) while in others a higher-level first degree is more usual.

Start Today is an album by Gorilla Biscuits.

It is considered an influential recording in hardcore punk and melodic hardcore.

It is the biggest selling record released by Revelation Records with copies in excess of 100,000 sold on CD alone.

Educational accreditation is a type of quality assurance process under which services and operations of educational institutions or programs are evaluated by an external body to determine if applicable standards are met.

If standards are met, accredited status is granted by the appropriate agency.