Online MBA Programs grow in popularity (news)

Despite the blabbing in some quarters, the popularity of online MBA programs in the U.S has continued to grow. This info came from Edupage listserv, which I cut and pasted below.


"ONLINE MBA PROGRAMS GROW IN POPULARITY
Online MBA programs are gaining traction, in part because of the
increased interaction students and professors say they receive
from in-depth studies and discussions. The online MBA program at
the University of Florida's Warrington College of Business has
enrolled 40 students per year for the two years of the program's
existence, despite the fact that it costs three times as much as
a traditional MBA program. Kansas City's Webster University has
about 275 students worldwide who participate in online courses,
most of them obtaining a degree exclusively from online courses.
Richard St. Clair, who teaches part of the online MBA program at
Webster, said he has greater interaction with the students than
he would in a traditional classroom setting.
(Kansas City Star Online, 15 July 2001)

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Ike

 

I heard a public radio piece today that was similar. Business education is growing and business schools are expanding to meet the need. The problem now is finding faculty to teach. A portion of the section focused on the Duke business programs.

John

 

What I fail to understand is why don't more state and private US schools look at Capella & Walden, et al., and see the high tuition they are charging, and develop more DL programs which could be run with existing faculty at a very high profit. This would benefit the vast majority of students who would welcome the opportunity to study at a "real" school via DL rather than at Capella or Walden.

Disclamer before the flames start: "real" school, as used above, means an established brick & mortar school & not an "internet" or correspondence school who only has physical facilities for its marketing & administration & doesn't teach classes on the ground.

 

More? There are dozens of residential schools that also offer DL MBA programs. Geez, you can't swing a dead cat without hitting one. Check out Johnnie Liu's page, or Bears' Guide to the Best MBAs by Distance Learning.

Rich Douglas

 

Online programs are reproducing like rabbits but most of the "better" schools in the US are still keeping away from them for some reason.

 

That is why "foreign" dl degrees have grown exponentially in the US (see Heriot-Watt as an example). These are real degrees from real schools. Why US schools don't copy this formula, I am not sure.

 

So a degree earned from say, Thomas Edison State College is a fake degree from a fake school??

Bruce

 

Compared to Harvard, Rutgers, or even UCLA... yes. Let's be honest here: reading at textbook, writing a paper, and posting to an online bulletin board (a la a typical Capella graduate class) is not the same experience as sitting for 30+ hours gaining the insight & experience of a (hopefully) brilliant instructor & interacting with others both formally & informally. Yes, a TESC, Excelsior, or Capella degree is the "same" as one from a traditional school, much like Ricki Lake and Sandra Bullock are of the "same" sex.

 

There are already 150-200 American distance education MBA programs. As Bruce suggested, check out Jonathan Liu's excellent website.

Ah, a bit of trolling. You seem to intentionally be trying to create some consternation with that remark.

If two schools offer essentially the same DL course, why is it "real" if the school that offers it also has on-campus programs, and presumably fake if it doesn't? And why should a distance education student even be concerned with on-campus courses that he or she doesn't intend to ever enroll in?

 

Oops, it was Rich and not Bruce that suggested Jonathan Liu's site.

Don't change the subject. In your first post you were distinguishing between distance education MBA programs, based on whether or not the school that offers them also offers on-campus programs. You termed the schools with on-campus programs "real" schools.

When questioned on that issue you immediately changed the subject and now are comparing distance education programs with relatively high-prestige on-campus programs.

Am I correct in interpreting this as an attack on distance education in general?

 

Gee, why do I get the idea that you have a degree from one of the above mentioned schools?

One of the biggest problems facing DL is the exact attitude that you display. If someone didn't do the same things you did, then it's automatically no good. My first stab at higher education came right out of high school when I entered Northeastern University in Boston. My first quarter (they operate, or at least did operate on the quarter system) consisted of huge lecture classes where the students were nothing more than a number to the instructor. Kind of tough to gain the insight & expertise of any instructor, brilliant or not, when you're competing with that many other students. I quit before the quarter ended and joined the US Army.

My second stab at higher ed, I went on for my Associate's at a public two-year college, Bachelor's at a small, private liberal arts college, and my Master's at a state university, all very non-traditionally. The only thing I would change is that I wouldn't have wasted the time at Northeastern, and just joined the Army right out of high school.

And to paraphrase John Bear, some of the most incompetent boobs I've ever met had Ivy League degrees, and some of the wisest never made it through high school.

Bruce

 

But I do endorse Johnnie's site 100%!!

Bruce

 

If you are simple stating that the in class "experience" is different than the online "experience", that’s probably true. It doesn’t really have much meaning. If you are inferring that that in class experience has anything to do with greater learning outcomes, you are way wrong. At least when judged against the volumes of data that has been gathered on the subject.

Nearly every study that compares learning outcomes between distance means and in class means, and there are hundreds of them, shows no significant difference. Period! You would be correct to say that there is a significant difference in prestige and presumptions. But you are no where near correct, based on empirical data, that there is any difference in learning outcomes between sitting in a lecture hall, with 300 other students, being bored by the most brilliant minds in the world, or reading a textbook, writing a paper, and interacting with other learners who happen to be using the same vehicle for their learning.

Adult, self-directed learners are masterful at exploiting whatever means available to maximize their learning opportunities. They do not need to be sitting in a lecture hall at Rutgers, UCLA, or anywhere else. And that has been proven.

 

Yes, we went off-track, and no, simply because someone disagrees with you, it isn't always trolling. What started out as a simple comment that given the popularity of non-traditional MBA's given by non-traditional schools for very high tuition, it is surprising that real/regular/established schools, such as your average state U don't pursue this more aggressively. Its certainly a cash-cow. And with an established faculty, relatively expense-free, and could be offered at a substantially lower tuition than Walden/Capella/Argosy. "Brand-recognition" would attract students who would otherwise be uspect of Walden/Capella/Argosy and who find it quite bizarre that to obtain a quality DL MBA they have to look offshore.

As for the off-track part: someone suggested that I postulated that a TESC BA or whatever is not the same as one from LSU/Harvard/USC, et al. I then interjected a bit of reality into the conversation & noted that a fully external DL degree cannot be the "same" as one achieved traditionally. Yes, the "outcome" is the same, but like the Ricki/Sandra analogy, some would find each woman, for their own reasons attractive and a relationaship with them beneficial, but they are not the "same" by any stretch of the imagination.

As for the quantative quality of such an education, I only have experience. Yes, I have studied at quality traditional schools (Rutgers, Harvard, Tulane--where one does not always sit in 300 person lectures beyond the first 2 years of undergrad), not-too quality schools (LA Tech, Univ of So Fla), and recently a DL school (Capella). The true value of the trad programs is not in the assigned reading or research that come with a course (same for trad/DL), but in the material one gleans from the leactures/discussions. You simply don't get that via DL where the instructor responds in a five or six sentence comment, etc. Otherwise, why don't all schools simply sell books and publish reading lists?
(Libery seems to cure this deficit by providing lectures on video, but many of the programs do not: they are purely guided self-study with limited feedback.)

Once again, like the Ricki/Sandra analogy: each mode has its uses, but don't dool yourself into thinking you're dating andra when Ricki comes to the door.

 

They don't have to look offshore unless they want to. There are already 150-200 American distance education MBAs for them to choose from. Most of them created within just the last few years. More are being added as we speak. There's obviously something there to satisfy almost any taste.

That's not accurate. Lewchuk had stated (predictably) that in order to find "real degrees from real schools", Americans are forced to look overseas to places like Heriot-Watt. Bruce had asked Lewchuk if Lewchuk considers TESC to be a 'fake' school. Then you jumped in with Harvard, Rutgers and UCLA.

So we went from 'why aren't more American universities offering DL MBAs (they are), to 'schools that don't offer on-campus programs in addition to their DL offerings are 'fake' schools' (they aren't), to 'the most prestigious on-campus programs are "better" in some sense than most distance education offerings' (probably true, but not really relevant).

OK, we have established that distance education is not the same as on-campus education. Glad that's cleared up.

I prefer on-campus instruction myself, when that is possible.

But it isn't all biased in favor of the classroom. I have found that the more slow-motion format of asynchronous discussion is a new and interesting form of intellectual interaction. Unlike real-time interaction, it allows participants to more carefully consider their responses and to look up references and supporting data if necessary. On-line discussion often seems to me to take place at a higher intellectual level than in-person discussion. It is kind of midway between class-discussion and an exchange of short papers in one of those review journals.

I also like the tutorial-like attention that one often gets from his or her instructor. When you are talking to them they are attending 100% to you and your issues, not performing in front of a classroom. The pace and content of instruction can be much more flexible and tailored to particular students' needs.

I will agree with you though that most distance education programs should work harder on increasing their interactivity. But obviously they are aware of that issue and are using every technical means at their disposal to address it. There's a whole industry growing up around this stuff.

That's actually the model that some of your "real" offshore schools use.

 

Most DL programs are geared toward working adults. This effectively negates the lack of interaction with other students. The working DL student reads his text, writes his paper, gets feedback from his instructor, and (in more and more programs) participates in online discussions. The real difference between the student cloistered in the classroom and the DL student experiencing his life is that the DL student has the opportunity to apply what he has learned immediately on the job. The feedback and discussion he has with his boss and coworkers is certainly no less meaningful than that which he has online with his instructor and classmates. Even in cases in which the DL student is earning a degree outside his line of work, the student has the opportunity to socialize with others (coworkers, family members, fishing buddies, etc.) and talk about what he is learning. The discussion which often ensues may serve to reveal more areas that need further exploration.

Really, I think that most of us want to eventually take our learning outside the classroom and put it to use in the "real world." It is a world that is full of bosses, coworkers, family members, and others who have meaningful opinions that weren't necesarily formed in academia. It is not a world filled with traditional classmates. Classroom discussions are often bound by what your instructor knows, what your classmates know, and what you know. Since all these parties have read the same text, listened to the same lectures, and studied for the same tests, is it any wonder why discussion in the traditional classroom setting doesn't have the same life it had once class lets out? Moreover, is it any wonder why these parties so often agree so quickly on so many topics of disussion? While on the other hand, your beer-swilling fishing buddy has opinions about art, literature, business, etc that weren't necessarily formed in the classroom.

Essentialy, it all boils down to acedemic and intellectual freedom. Freedom is something that DL allows more fully. Freedom is something that colleges and universities have sought for years.

Tracy Gies <><

 

I want to further add that once a person has gone beyond the "larger" general education classes and more to smaller upper division and/or graduate level seminars in a good traditional program, the type of education that was most valuable for me was being around and getting to know the character of my professors or supervisors that their books could not include. I don't know if this would have been the same through the internet or by correspondence.

On another response (not to se94583): As for the sometimes jab at Ivy Leaguer's verses the "wiser" High School graduate, I think this is all getting too envious and retaliatory. Yes, it is always true that there will be bad apples in any group--even the best groups. Wisdom and "street smart" aside, the reasonable person would agree that the average Ivy Leaguer is superior academically than when compared to your average High School dropout or DL student.

So if my child works hard and gets accepted into Harvard's M.B.A. program or Yale Law School, I can assume (based on the reasonable person standard and not the minority DL world) that he/she and the average student there is a heck of alot superior academically and standard IQ wise as compared to the average DL M.B.A.'er or some unaccredited DL internet based law program. It is furthermore reasonable to assume that the first two mentioned traditional program will probably have greater avenues for learning (if the student takes that opportunity) than the later two DL programs.

Before pointing out the few Ivy Leaguers that may not be too bright--try to remember that there are a whole lot more DL people who's academic level are so low that they would probably never get accepted to even a traditional second tier school.

It's okay to defend DL programs...but it is too ridiculous to seriously use the "some Ivy Leaguers not too smart analogy" to make DL programs look better. Actually, whenever Ivy Leaguers or their programs are compared to DL programs, it only makes DL programs look worst.

EsqPhD

 

True, but I think that the reasonable person would also agree that, outside the classroom, academic superiority is often not as important as street smarts, and probably never as important as wisdom.

Tracy Gies <><

 

Agree on the wisdom part.

EsqPhD

 

I also agree re wisdom. Don't short academic superiority, however, I've sat & interacted with some truly greta minds & their teaching styles, etc. literally changed my life. Reading those persons papers & books, however, would never have achieved that result.

To address another issue: the mth of the "working" adult. If one truly wants to change carers, etc., one needs to make the necessary sacrifices to achieve those goals, be it a MBA, JD or PhD. The "I'll have my cake and eat it too" attitude is a recent phenomenon. When I lept into lawschool, I did it with the full understanding that if I didn't go full-time in a day program, it would be a half-assed degree. Consequentially, I attended lawschool AND worked 40 hours a week. Not recommended or something I wanted to do, but something I had to do in order to achieve my goal. I could have easily attended a correspondence law school & received the same CA bar license, but let's get real, it REALLY would not have been the same.