From the issue dated December 10, 1999

2 More Universities Start Diploma-Granting Virtual High Schools By SARAH CARR Entering what they see as "a market of the future," two more universities that have offered correspondence courses to high-school students for decades are opening their doors on line -- as diploma-granting virtual high schools. Both Indiana University High School and the University of Missouri at Columbia High School were granted accreditation by the North Central Association of Colleges and Schools last spring. Both programs have offered more than 100 high-school courses to thousands of students through their distance-education departments for decades. But only since their accreditation has it become possible for students to work toward diplomas at the schools. The University of Missouri at Columbia High School opened its diploma program on October 1 with 50 students (http://indepstudy.ext.missouri.edu/MUHighSchool/HShome.htm). Indiana University High School will start its diploma program in January, and already has a waiting list of 500 students (http://scs.indiana.edu). "The main reason that we sought accreditation was to accommodate the large number of students who haven't succeeded in traditional high schools or don't want to go to traditional high schools, including millions of students who are being home-schooled," says Jeremy Dunning, the dean of the School of Continuing Studies at Indiana. The high school is part of the School of Continuing Studies. Von Pittman, the director of the Center for Distance and Independent Study at Missouri, says that until this fall, the university supplied a range of courses for students who needed a few credits to obtain their diplomas elsewhere or found holes in their local high schools' curricula. Mary Lou Retton, the Olympic gymnast, took classes from the high school when her traveling and competition schedule made it impossible for her to earn all her credits at a traditional high school. But now the high school is "becoming more programmatic, instead of supplying random, here-and-there courses," Mr. Pittman says. Both the Indiana and Missouri high schools are financially independent of their founding universities and support themselves through tuition; students pay $85 for a semester course at Indiana and $90 for a semester course at Missouri. The courses are developed and taught by certified high-school teachers. The high schools are administered by the distance-education divisions of the universities and share the same instructional designers, for instance, as the university programs. The Indiana program, seeking to make the high-school experience as authentic as possible, is even creating a virtual yearbook, virtual chess club, and virtual homeroom system. Mr. Dunning says universities are expanding their distance-education programs for younger students to meet a demonstrated need, as the demand for the high-school courses continues to grow. But he adds that Indiana does not make a profit on its high-school offerings and does not intend to in the future. "The profit margin is not terribly high if you want to offer high-quality high-school courses," he says. "We make more of a profit on college courses." But the University of Nebraska at Lincoln, which also operates an accredited, correspondence high school, created a for-profit company last spring to sell high-school courses over the Internet. Earlier this fall, the company -- called Class.com -- gained its first major client when it signed a deal to provide on-line high-school courses to a new virtual high school in Kentucky (The Chronicle, October 22). John A. Blair, the president of Class.com, says the goals of the three universities are the same, although their methods differ. "We chose to do it in a for-profit model because we thought we would have an opportunity to more quickly extend the reach of quality education to a larger audience," he says. http://chronicle.com Section: Information Technology Page: A49 Easy-to-print version E-mail this article