Steady Long-Term Trends Rule the World

The newly-released Sloan Consortium Report on online higher education finds that the number of college students taking at least one online course increased from 3.9 million in Fall 2007 to 4.6 million in Fall 2008, a 17 percent jump. The overall number of college students grew 1.2 percent during the same time. In 2002, less than 10 percent of students were taking an online class. Today, more than 25 percent do. Sloan

The report didn't get a great deal of mainstream media attention, because the media has a terrible bias toward unpredictable short-term change. Coverage of the stock market is a perfect example. On any given day, nobody knows if the market will go up or down. So it's always treated as news, along with various vague and largely-fabricated explanations, e.g. "Investors reacted to uncertainty over XYZ Uncertain Thing today by buying and/or selling stocks and bonds. Back to you in the studio, Brad!" Political news is much the same, with every momentary twist and turn treated as definitive proof that whoever is in power is either destined to rule for generations or is on the brink of total collapse. Nobody actually knows the truth, but that doesn't stop people from drawing loud and confident inferences from often-random fluctuation.

Meanwhile, it's pretty obvious that online courses are going to play an increasingly important role in higher education and that the Internet will have a profound impact on the academy as we have known it for many years. But since it's no more or less obvious today than it was in 2009, or 2008, or 2007, or 2006, it doesn't get a lot of notice. Steady, predictable long-term trends rule the world, but unsteady short-term variance captures all of our attention.

People working in traditional four-year liberal colleges and research universities may take exception to the "profound impact" part above, since online higher education thus far has been concentrated among community college students and adults seeking workforce-related and graduate degrees. But for a glimpse of where the market is going, look no further than a recent advertisement from Kaplan University:

It's striking how direct and harsh a critique of traditional colleges and universities this is. "Steeped in tradition" is generally taken as a good thing in higher education, not grounds for denunciation. The Washington Post Company paid some advertising agency a lot of money to produce this commercial and hire Uncle Phil from Fresh Prince of Bel Air to star in it. This is not an ad from a company that's interested in nibbling around the edges of the gigantic market for traditional college degrees. They appear to be aiming right at the heart of it, and the Sloan report numbers indicate that they and others like them are becoming more and more successful over time.

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Comments

1. simon100 - January 28, 2010 at 08:59 am

Hopefully the "new" system will improve Kaplan's 38% graduation rate (OEDb).

2. timlincoln - January 28, 2010 at 09:39 am

The Kaplan ad is, like all advertisements, a strong statement intended to sell a product. The larger point, I think, is that more and more students are taking online courses. Moroever, many of them are not taking online courses from for-profit colleges.

While there seems to be little evidence that online education is "better" or more liberating (the Kaplan ad suggests that we all are victims of a vast conspiracy led by cunning, tweedy egg heads in Berlin and Baltimore), the steady long term trend that Carey documents gives all higher educators food for thought.
For instance, how should we all respond to the perceived flexibility that online courses give students?

3. simon100 - January 28, 2010 at 11:12 am

timlincoln - Great point. Personally, I am an advocate of including online options. However, I do find the above ad a bit pretentious and humorous given some "online" universities' reputations.

One of my favorite SNL skits, University of Westfield Online, spoof: http://www.hulu.com/watch/101506/saturday-night-live-university-of-westfield-online

4. charliemarlow - January 28, 2010 at 11:18 am

timlincoln is on target...
Also, online is excellent for some students in some situations. Face-to-face is excellent for others in other situations.
BTW Kaplan's use of a Max Headroom presentation is pretty funny - it looks like an old TV lecture from the 1960s. :-) Not too impressive, though the commercial is powerful, anyway.

5. diehl - January 29, 2010 at 10:34 am

As far as improving Kaplan's 38% graduation rate, I would respond to Simon100, our nationwide four year graduation rate for traditional universities and colleges is

6. diehl - January 29, 2010 at 11:17 am

As far as improving Kaplan's 38% graduation rate, I would respond to Simon100, our nationwide four year graduation rate for traditional universities and colleges is less than 37%.

7. kmsaberre - January 30, 2010 at 02:20 pm

I really just see this article as a cry to higher education officials in the "traditional" universities to work harder to connect with the days of the technological wave that college students live in everyday

8. bizdean - January 30, 2010 at 03:54 pm

Kevin's conclusion from the Sloan graph is not justified. In today's world, a trend that is only growing linearly (as the graph suggests) is not a big deal at all. Lasting innovations show an s-shaped growth path - that is, with exponential growth in their early stages.

If we could see the growth trajectory of online learning for the years preceding those shown in the graph, we could better judge whether the s-curve applies. It could be that this linear-looking segment is simply the middle portion of the s-curve. And in that case, we would expect a levelling-off of growth in the near future.

9. johntoradze - February 01, 2010 at 01:13 pm

Tuition at UC in 1970, the first year of student fees, was $600 per year. It is now $8125 per year. Overall 4 year graduation rate in 6 years is 77.9% at UC campuses.

Tuition per year at University of Phoenix is $11,000 and 4 year graduation rate in 6 years is 4%.

Tuition at Kaplan is $9250 per year, and graduation rate is 37%.

The driving factors for online versus bricks and mortar education are:

A. Student cost-effectiveness. Clearly, online education isn't cheaper for leading schools.
B. Acceptance of students. U of Phoenix has an open entry policy - if you have a GED or equivalent, you're in. UC has a much more competitive system.
C. Fiscal health of the universities. U of Phoenix has made billionaires out of its founders. Does that make the University healthy? Or has it been fiscally looted? University of California is a huge enterprise, dwarfing the GDPs of many nations. It is fiscally sound.
D. Marketability of the degree. This is the toughest thing to rate. The fact is that many students come out of bricks and mortar institutions barely able to work. The advantage that online universities have is that many of their students work already, and so they don't pick up that deadly virus of slackerism that infects traditional campuses.

I don't see bricks and mortar going anywhere. Students are overwhelming the UC and CSU systems to get in. It's obvious why. The marketability of the degrees is still higher, and the cost is lower. It is also easier to fulfill a classroom/testing based system than many online programs.

I see legislation on the horizon that will set standards for online universities of minimum faculty ratios and some sort of measures of comparison. I see minimum graduation rates to stay accredited, and periodic audits of graduate status 4 years after graduation from 4 year as well as graduate programs. I see audits on the horizon of randomly selected dissertations as part of accreditation.

What we will see is that online will become part of bricks and mortar education. Some are doing this already. We will also see advanced placement and credit by examination at bricks and mortar universities.

This is how competition works. First the upstarts try things, some of them get shot down, some of them fly. Then they get adopted by the mainstream. Life goes on.