Online education has become the fastest-growing segment of the higher-education market, driven by booming enrollments at for-profit institutions and steadier efforts at nonprofit colleges to cut instructional costs and reach more students with electronic courses.
But historically black colleges are moving more cautiously toward adopting online-degree programs, according to a new report from the Digital Learning Laboratory at Howard University.
Researcher Roy L. Beasley found that 19 of the nation’s 105 historically black colleges now offer an online-degree program—an increase of seven institutions since 2006.
More than two-thirds of the online programs are found at public black colleges, and a dozen of the 20 largest black institutions offer such programs, Mr. Beasley concluded. And he found that among the 20 black colleges with the highest graduation rates, only seven offered online-degree programs.
The problem is that the same economic conditions that make online programs desirable (to increase enrollment at a lower cost) also hamper black colleges, especially the many small, private institutions that have insufficient resources and electronic infrastructure.
On the positive side, two companies have emerged to help black colleges overcome those hurdles: HBCUs Online, begun this fall by the popular radio host Tom Joyner, who has also been a major donor to historically black colleges, and Education Online Services Corporation, headed by former NAACP president Benjamin F. Chavis.
To the extent that online programs are successful at attracting and retaining nontraditional students, the move to offer more courses electronically may help rescue many financially challenged black colleges, Mr. Beasley says.
“At this point, declining student enrollments pose an existential challenge,” he says. “In their search for ways to increase their enrollments, the private HBCU’s that hitherto have shown little or no interest in meeting the continuing education needs of nontraditional African-American students are now giving serious consideration to online programs, not only as a potential source of sorely needed additional revenue, but also as a source of additional enrollments that would help them justify their continued existence.”
10 Responses to Black Colleges Are Slowly Adding Online Degrees
mer2013 - November 27, 2010 at 1:50 pm
It’s about time that the HBCU’s start coming into the 21st century. It is good to keep history and traditon, but the fact of the matter is that a lot of talented and smart students not only tradition college age but the non-tradional students are not looking at HBCU’s because of the lack of on-line classes and that they are no looking for those type of students.
raymond_j_ritchie - June 16, 2011 at 6:55 am
This article brushes around the issue of staffing of an offshore campus. The reality is that the parent institution has no control over staffing of a branch campus for the simple reason that the branch campus is subject to the laws of the host country. The parent institution has some control on who can go there on secondment from the parent campus but you are fooling yourselves if you think you can control appointments at the branch campus. For starters, many countries have racial/ethnic/religious quotas for employment that would be illegal in most western countries.
Nobody wants to admit it but lack of control of staffing is why the research profiles of branch campuses of Australian Universities are never mentioned. Places like Sydney, Melbourne, UNSW, Monash, ANU et al seem to always omit publications from their branch campuses in their research profiles. The reason is not difficult to work out.
cgcetown - June 16, 2011 at 8:41 am
One additional thought – do not fall into the trap of thinking that multinational corporations do this better. The corporate world is littered with horror stories of overseas assignments gone wrong, and some Fortune 500 companies have quietly reported expat failure rates of up to 90%. For those interested in understanding the difficulties of picking the right people to send overseas, check out “Carry a Chicken In Your Lap, or Whatever It Takes to Globalize Your Business” (St. Martin’s Press, 2009).
jeffcason - June 16, 2011 at 8:38 pm
The devil is indeed in the details, as this article notes. Another detail to address is how to find appropriately trained international inclined faculty and staff, ones who will think through all the issues brought up here (and many more) in a systematic way. Middlebury College and its graduate school, the Monterey Institute for International Studies, are in the process of designing a new MA program in International Education Management, which should help to train practitioners who would be based both in the U.S. and abroad, to fill these roles.
609zr - June 16, 2011 at 10:22 pm
Dear David: Nice international textbook article. It is a fantasy of overseas academia without the corruption, failure to comply with contracts, lack of written policies, religious issues, murder, the HRM department. Even in America, the personnel department is usually staffed with a local graduate who never studied business least of all international labor law.
In our quest to give the world a Western education, which is highly overrated, we put profits above life. Mohamed Al-Majed, a Qatari student studying English in East Sussex was murdered. The police are calling it “racially motivated.” For every pro study abroad article the CHE chooses to publish, I can give you multiple examples of arrested, tortured, incarcerated and murdered students and faculty. Forced diversity is a failure. Please stop the propaganda.
My condolences to Mr. Al-Majed’s family and friends.
Simon Evans - June 18, 2011 at 7:10 am
Chronicle: The Internationalization Devil Can Be in the Staffing Details — indeed!
Susan Kelly - June 19, 2011 at 10:07 am
Interesting article. As a former teacher for two Massachusetts colleges with new programs in China, I advise institutions to plan before jumping into a program. Yes, your adjuncts may not get insurance in the US, but they also can get insurance through a spouse or a job at Starbucks (they shouldn’t have to but that’s another issue).
Also, employers shouldn’t just use their extra airline miles to buy the professor’s airline tickets as mine did, thus leaving me stranded for a week in China in January when I had to change my schedule.
Yes, this report is free, but since you’re branching out in order to make money, expect to invest in HR expertise as government agencies and corporations do to avoid law suits or problems with healthcare that differ from you local operations.
A word to the wise, I don’t recommend working for a school that’s just launching an overseas program unless you’re a full time employee that they view as valuable.
Susan Kelly - June 19, 2011 at 10:12 am
I just read one of the comments stating that corporations do err horribly in international staffing. That’s no doubt true. But at least when I worked in the private sector there was a person whose job was to oversee HR concerns for expats. Neither of the Mass. colleges had that. In fact when they big wigs from New England would visit China, they wouldn’t bother spending more than 15 minutes with the US teachers in China to see how the program was going. Their main concern was making more money.
Susan Kelly - June 19, 2011 at 10:14 am
Bravo for Middlebury and Monterey Institute for Int’l Studies. Yet, I’ve seen these international partnerships and I doubt most US schools would be willing to properly pay a professional.
bcbailey64 - June 20, 2011 at 5:03 pm
When I started teaching English in Japan 20 years ago, I was warned of the “midnight run.” This term described the common occurrence of teachers new to Japan, literally packing up in the middle of the night and catching the next flight back to their country of origin because they couldn’t handle the culture shock. When staffing for overseas positions, I would seek out people with the following qualities – open-mindedness, adaptability, flexibility, naturally curious, resilient, friendly, confident but not arrogant – professional experience would rank further down the list – you can always train someone but it’s much more difficult to change their character….and it’s mostly about their character.