Something in the neighborhood of one hundred million dollars of investment...currently 900 students. Just might take a few lifetimes to get out of the red, at that rate.
This development was not unexpected by those who had practical experience in distance learning on a global scale. In Scotland, we have had an experience of this business model in the former Scottish Knowledge Ltd, a partly public funded (from Scottish unievrsities) and private investment, agency. It raised £5 million of working capital, but at £3 million spend it closed doors. The same problem was highlighted: if Universities can market a DL product on their own they will prefer that to using a separate agency sharing billing with other products from other universities, and sharing income with it. Last year a second attempt was made, based on a similar business model as SK, known as the 'Interactive University' (which wags note was neither interactive nor a university), in which Scottish universities could take a stake (the main one so far is Heriot-Watt University). It is a central agency marketing university DL products. £2 million of public money was put up and so far it is not produced much revenue. EBS took an early decision not to participate. Our successful DL model has an exclusive partnership with Pearson, and I believe this is element is essential for these kind of initiatives. Centralised, multi-product, agencies cannot get business in practice, though it sounds great in theory - one sales call abroad with many products. There is also the problem of the three spines in the model: the producing universities; the IU, which adds the electronic platform, and the client School which delievr the proudct to its students abroad. (It is, you will note, a distance teaching model). Yet all three have their own bureaucracy to secure approvals, to maintain motivation for the project, and to work in tandem (an essential element in delivering product to students and assessing students for awards). If IU succeed, they would be the first. I wish them well, but EBS will not put our products into it, or support it receiving more public funding.
It's interesting that, from the student perspective, it sounds like a good thing: leading universities participate (theoretically, more to follow), cutting edge technology, central clearing house for programs etc.. However, from the schools' perspectives it sounds like a disjointed mess. Too bad.
I don't agree with the article's assertion that, "As a series of universities around the world have discovered, there is less demand for online study than enthusiasts predicted..." There's plenty of demand - just not for UKeU's model, apparently.
