If you think online degrees will remain just a niche, consider the time when Borders and E.F. Hutton were touting their superior in-person experiences.I noticed this writer first began to think about the higher education bubble when he started looking at colleges with his high school junior son. Yup, I know the feeling.
There's a market-disrupting force at play in higher education that isn't so prevalent in housing: information technology. Specifically, readily available, much-lower-cost, Web-based alternatives to the standard fare. The Web's potential to let customers bypass the bricks-and-mortar status quo applies just as much to higher education as it does to book selling or stock trading.
Yes, a big part of the college value proposition is the on-campus experience -- the social as well as academic engagement, frat parties as well as chemistry labs. But for those who just want the knowledge, skills, and diploma, it's only a matter of time before online and other unconventional learning tracks become the norm rather than the exception. If you think online degrees and courses will remain just a niche or are a passing fancy, consider the time when Borders and E.F. Hutton were touting their superior in-person experiences. College courses and degree programs delivered mostly online are cheaper, more convenient, and often more specialized than traditional programs, even if they don't (yet) bestow the same prestige.
Established universities are starting to step up. For example, a colleague of mine is now earning a master's degree in media management through the prestigious University of Missouri-Columbia school of journalism. The coursework, which spans about 36 semester hours, includes a discussion component analogous to class participation. Students do have to take a professional seminar on campus for three days, and they must defend their thesis in person, typically requiring a half-day on campus. Otherwise, it's all online. And she's doing it while holding down a full-time job.
They are not going away. But they are just as expensive to teach, and it seems that right now, the bulk of students who sign up are already on-campus. They are there for the extracurricular(um, party) experience and having to go to a physical class takes away from that.
ReplyDeleteWell, that's one model that might work - online classes but real life keg parties!
ReplyDeleteI think it will be the salvation of higher ed :-)
ReplyDeleteAre students clamoring for online courses? Or are they forced to complete coursework that is only offered online? Many smaller colleges and community courses don't so much as "offer" online courses as they "require" them. They are cheaper to offer, but the tuition the student pays remains the same = profitable for the school. I don't see them going away, but I also don't see them as being necessarily good for the student.
ReplyDeleteLynn -- I suspect many non-traditional students want online courses, and maybe increasingly more traditional students will want them as a way to save money. However, if they cost the same as classroom courses, then the only savings might be in the dorm expenses, which might be significant.
ReplyDeleteI agree that the quality of online courses across the board is debatable, but I have read about some great online learning experiences.
They are not cheaper to offer. There is significant development time to get an online course going, which means that many schools (including mine) pay an extra stipend to do it. They need to be small so that students don't get lost in the shuffle. We cap our online courses at 15 instead of the usual 25. There has to be significant hardware and networking infrastructure in place, with all of the requisite tech support people.
ReplyDeleteDid you see this article in the Chronicle?
ReplyDeletehttp://chronicle.com/article/Why-Are-So-Many-Students-Still/127584/
Thank you for pointing out that article! Very good points made in the comments, particularly about the research on this. No doubt, some will go overboard in pushing online for everything, but I hope that is not the majority. But the pressure to cut costs is certainly putting pressure for more online learning.
ReplyDelete