Army Bombshell Rocks Distance Education

Planned $600-million program could reshape the competitive world of online learning

By SARAH CARR

The U.S. Army, often perceived as traditional and hidebound, is angling for a position on the cutting edge of higher education.

Louis Caldera, the secretary of the Army, announced in July that it would spend

ALSO SEE: Colloquy Live: Join a live discussion with Louis Caldera, the secretary of the Army, about the Army's new push in distance education, on Tuesday, August 29 at 3 p.m. Eastern time

$600-million over the next six years to enable any interested soldier to take distance-education courses on the Internet at little or no cost.

The program, which could bring online courses to hundreds of thousands of soldiers and help change the image of the Army, could also open the floodgates to colleges and companies eager to sell online courses to soldiers.

For their part, Army officials hope that the program will help them recruit more soldiers.

An initial contract will be awarded this fall to a college, company, or consortium that can set up the technology to deliver the courses. Army officials refer to the contractor as the "integrator," and say it will subcontract with colleges and universities that agree to use the system to offer their courses to soldiers. Soldiers would then be able to choose from among the courses offered by the subcontracting colleges.

"Someone other than the Army should be the integrator in terms of dealing with the universities and bringing them into the program, issuing the technology, providing the help-desk support, and these types of things," says Mr. Caldera. He says he hopes to involve many institutions in the new program in order to offer soldiers the widest possible selection of courses.

The Army's announcement has sent hundreds of higher-education officials and distance-education leaders scurrying to compete for a market that could exceed a million students, if the program is eventually extended to include the families of soldiers.

According to Army figures, 9,021 soldiers have enrolled in distance-education courses so far this year. Under current policy, the government pays 75 percent of the tuition cost, and each soldier pays the remaining 25 percent.

"Suddenly, under the proposal, the Army will become the largest broker and customer of distance learning in the United States, eclipsing many of the current large-scale providers in this country and even the huge open-learning institutions in some other nations," says Richard P. Hezel, president of Hezel Associates, a planning and research company specializing in distance education.

Adds Lawrence H. Rubly, the director of distance learning at the Keller Graduate School of Management, a division of DeVry Inc., which offers distance-education courses: "If you look at this proposal from the broadest perspective, and if the Army can actually pull this off, it will create a new kind of model for delivering education."

Administrators say they plan to compete aggressively for even a small piece of the action. More than a thousand people attended an August 2 "industry day," at which administrators, businessmen, and Army officials brainstormed about the venture.

The announcement has drawn such widespread interest because of the amount of money involved, and because the Army's huge pool of potential students is perceived to represent a bonanza for colleges looking to either create or expand online offerings.

Because the program could involve dozens of partners, and will presumably be in place for at least the next few years, colleges at just about any stage in the process of developing online courses could vie for the Army's business.

But distance-education leaders caution that as more details about the program emerge, some administrators and company officials may realize that the fit is not perfect. And all parties involved in the discussion agree that the new program will require unusual flexibility by both the Army and higher-education institutions.

The Army typically issues a request for proposals, or R.F.P., when choosing academic partners, and interested institutions respond with bids. But in this case, Mr. Caldera delayed issuing an R.F.P. until after he had talked with distance-education experts and providers. "We did not want to issue an R.F.P. in the traditional way and have people respond, and then pick a vendor," he says. "Usually you get only two or three responses because it is the same group that understands this process. We wanted to have a dialogue."

Mr. Caldera anticipates that the Army will issue an R.F.P. in mid-September, choose an integrator as quickly as possible, and then begin the program in January at a few Army bases, which officials have not yet selected.

The Army has already budgeted about $48-million to get the program started in the coming fiscal year. Officials say they have made the full $600-million a top priority, but Congress has not approved the expenditure, and will be asked to appropriate money for the program as part of the overall Army budget in each of the next six years.

In addition to setting up the technology, the integrator will coordinate the granting of credit to soldiers. In most cases, credit will be granted by the institution that offers the course, but the integrator will, for instance, establish policies for transferring credits between institutions. The Army is looking for colleges to offer courses at all levels and in as wide a range of subjects as possible, but it plans to start with courses at the associate-degree level.

"Personally, I believe that a system with an open architecture in which the maximum number of colleges and universities that qualify can participate will give the soldiers the greatest range of choice to find the program that best meets their need," says Mr. Caldera.

Such talk gets the attention of college officials because it suggests that many institutions will be able to reap the benefits -- and the proceeds -- of the new program.

"The idea that they are going to support it with dollars is significant," says Robert B. Leiter, the associate vice chancellor and dean of outreach and continuing education at the University of Tennessee at Knoxville.

"A lot of time, you see ideas floated out there in the distance-education arena, but there is no money to support them, and it takes a lot of money to get the courses developed and to buy the hardware and software that goes with them," he says.

At colleges that already have extensive distance-learning programs, administrators say the Army's program could help them expand and improve student services.

"We have already made a commitment to a 24-7 operation where students can meet their counselors online and buy books online," says Roe Darnell, the president of Cerro Coso Community College, in Ridgecrest, Calif. "Working with the Army would help us strengthen that operation, because we would have the critical mass of student numbers that we need to make it worth it."

Mr. Darnell says he has not yet decided whether Cerro Coso will vie to participate, and adds that he believes institutions that do will face some challenges, including dealing with a "government bureaucracy."

For colleges that are trying to develop a supply of online courses rapidly, the venture could serve as a catalyst.

"For us, Internet courses are where we hope to grow the fastest right now," says Jennifer Doss, the associate director of distance education at the University of Alabama at Tuscaloosa. "This proposal would give us the opportunity to identify what the Army has an interest in, and then come back and build it."

Mr. Caldera says the Army's program may serve as a visible reminder of the large size of the market for distance-education courses. He adds that the Army's announcement could reassure college administrators who are just beginning to consider venturing into distance learning.

"This is very concrete," Mr. Caldera says. "If you are trying to develop this type of program, you can now go to your university president and say, 'Look, there is a huge market out there.'"

But so far the Army's program is still only a proposal. The Keller management school's Mr. Rubly says the first test will be whether the Army can actually get the program up and running by the target date.

"The Army is looking to roll this program out in January of 2001 at two installations they have yet to select," says Mr. Rubly. "To gear up to serve that many students so soon is a great challenge in and of itself."

Eva Carwile, the director of marketing and corporate relations at the University of Dallas's Graduate School of Management, says the Army has not always delivered on its reimbursement promises. "In the past, there has sometimes been a huge discrepancy in terms of what they have told the soldier and the amount of money that is actually there," she says.

Colleges in the Army program may also find themselves pushing against traditional academic boundaries to make the distance-education program work.

For example, college officials will have to accept that academic credit comes in "non-traditional forms," such as through military examinations and courses, says Meredyth A. Leahy, the dean of liberal arts at Regents College, in Albany, N.Y., which offers distance-education courses to the military.

"The more traditional institutions will be challenged by that," she says.

"Getting schools to agree to standardize their way of doing business is going to be a major obstacle," says Dian Stoskopf, the director of the Army Continuing Education System. "It is not normal for an academic institution to want to be like all other academic institutions."

And higher-education and Army officials say interest in the proposal may wane for some colleges even before flexibility becomes an issue.

"When the Army issues an R.F.P., they will be very detailed," says Brian Mueller, the chief operating officer for the University of Phoenix's online campus. "I think when people see the level of detail, and have to examine what they have in place, there will be people who say, 'Yes, we absolutely can do this,' and others who will say, 'We are just not ready for this.'"

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