Future of DL?

In reading the article and the recent thread about the over-saturation of graduate degrees that is partly caused by DL, I started wondering what the board might think of the future of DL in general? Do you think it's some sort of bubble that will pop and cause backlash against DL? Or do you think it's going to keep getting stronger because of the economies of scale and the higher profit margin enjoyed by those who offer it? What's your opinion?

 

The gap between the utility of a top ranked B&M degree and a for-profit DL degree, while already large, will grow to be enormous.

Top B&M schools will become even more competitive, and so graduation from one will confer increasingly elite status over the oversupply of indistinguishable RA or NA bachelors and masters degrees.

This will be partly a result of DL, but the effects won't distinguish between delivery method. A DL degree from an elite B&M will still be elite.

 

The creeping requirement for more and more credentials needed to do the same work was publicized by David Hapgood in his splendid book, Diplomaism. That was in 1971! It has grown unabated since.

In the early 1970's we (who were there) saw the rise of the part-time degree program. That was really innovative--night school! At the same time we saw the creation of credit by examination, for lifelong learning, for non-collegiate learning, for correspondence courses (which obviously had been available long before that), and other forms of earning credit nontraditionally. But it took the internet (actually, the World Wide Web) to bring distance learning to nearly everyone who could pay.

DL has increased the supply tremendously. But what about demand? Degrees are proxies--they speak on behalf of their holders to employers considering them for hire. Back in the pre-WWW days, job applicants were largely limited to local searches which, in turn, limited the number of applicants for each job. But now with the WWW, applicants can apply for jobs all over the nation--and the world. Employers are deluged with applicants. Using credentials--degrees and certifications, mostly--is a way to cut through the pile. Fair? Hardly. But most certainly real. This dynamic alone will keep the demand side cooking.

I'll believe that DL has diminished the meaning of a college degree when the supply of these programs drops. But they're on the rise because demand keeps increasing, even if for some unfortunate reasons.

 

In what markets? Most places I've worked (top internet companies) could care less where you earned your degree from. If they were looking for someone with an MBA, they MIGHT consider someone from a well known school over someone else but for the most part it was a degree from pretty much any school plus relevant experience.

 

I'm wondering about demographics. We know that the leading edge of the baby boomer generation is approaching standard retirement age. We also know that a lot of people have lost a substantial portion of their reirement savings. Also, we know that people, in general, are living longer and staying "younger" longer. This means that a lot of people who might, under other circumstances, retire from their jobs will not be retiring. This means there will be fewer opportunities in established industries. Competition for those few spots will result in, among other things, credential wars. We may see some drop off of DL degree programs, especially in areas such as Business (let's face it, there are a LOT of MBA programs out there) but I'm going to guess that we see an increase in the number of specialized certification programs. I'm guessing that CAGS programs and grad diploma programs will proliferate. As for new industries, I think that opportunities will expand. If I was just about to graduate from high school and had to choose a school/major, I'f be looking at a Tech school and at a major that could throw me into the genetic engineering world, pharm world, medical world. Similar opportunities will occur in areas such as Bioinformatics. Any school that finds a way to offer such programs through distance learning is going to profit from it because there will be lots of people interested in switching careers into an area where there is more opportunity for unward mobility. That's my prediction for the future. Now we can just sit back and wait for 10 or 15 years to see if I'm right (or we could start now to earn those certs).

 

Yet to see return on investment in this case.

http://www.ednewscolorado.org/2009/12/21/csu-online-campus-growing-but-slowly/

 

I also wanted to add my thoughts on the "bubble". I think that if college tuition keeps rising, there will be a point where people will have had enough and will start looking for alternate cheaper ways to get the same education. We on the board are already there but I think you'll see a greater number of people testing out of credits and enrolling in distance programs that offer much cheaper rates. I can see people that live somewhere in the middle of the country in a fly over state that have access to only one expensive state school looking more for other options online. Schools such as U of Wyoming and Western New Mexico U offer much better tuition deals for online studies than many in state schools.

As for the bubble itself, for years people have had it beaten in them that the bachelors degree is the new HS diploma. If you want to stand out, you need a masters. Society has shifted from one where few people had a college education to one where almost everyone has or can easily get one. It's not DL that created the bubble, it's ease of getting loans to pay for education.

 

The same applies to aerospace industry in my experience. It is what you can do for your employer that is key to hiring, promotion prospect, and salary.

 

Some random thoughts:

-- A tremendous development that we never discuss on Degreeinfo is blended education, in which B&M students take some of their classes online and in which B&M classes incorporate online content and features. That's probably the crest of the wave and it will only grow. Pure-DL programs and pure in-class programs might be outliers.

-- DL makes degree-programs from all over the world available virtually anywhere. So higher education will continue to internationalize. Earning a degree from a foreign university will be less remarkable than it has been in the past.

-- That's leading to increasing standardization of degree syllabi and nomenclature. More attention will be paid to international quality assurance and acceditation standards.

-- The profliferation of degree-mills casts a long shadow over all of DL. Comedians already get laughter with the phrase "internet university" and that will inevitably impact real life. It's perhaps the biggest burden that DL bears right now.

-- DL is probably being oversold when people start insisting that labs and practical experiences aren't important, largely because DL doesn't lend itself to them. DL is more suitable for some subjects than for others. DL's future growth will be uneven, faster in some directions than in others.

-- There seems to be a growing tendency for ostensible "masters" programs to admit individuals with bachelors degrees in unrelated subjects. That's causing masters degrees to start to become introductory certificates with attitude. Employers will inevitably wise up to the fact that bachelors degrees are often higher degrees (more demanding prerequisites and more advanced content) than masters degrees. The masters degree, DL's bread-and-butter will likely decline in value.

-- The devaluation of the doctorate won't be far behind. (It's already happening.) Some education providers might try to introduce an even "higher" post-doctoral degree. I don't see that catching on though (except for professional students) so there will inevitably be increasing differentiation among doctoral programs. The mere fact of the degree will get less attention while the experiences that went into earning it will get greater emphasis.

-- Generalizing on that, employers are likely to pay more attention to how credits were earned as the ways to earn credits grows more diverse.

-- The use of adjuncts will probably increase along with low-end DL programs offshoring instruction to low-paid professors in places like India. There will be growing differentiation between the universities that do those kind of things and those that don't.

-- I've always thought that DL programs might be a great way to offer low-demand subjects. It hasn't happened though. Instead, they almost always emphasize high-demand subjects. (Hundreds upon hundreds of MBA programs.) The advantage to doing a low-demand subject by DL is that there's little or no competition. There may only be a handful of people interested in the subject at any one university, but a large number of interested scholars around the world with internet access. I still think that this will inevitably grow at some point. B&M universities might stop offering low-demand degree-programs in the humanities or arcane technical specialties all by themselves, instead moving them online and offering them in virtual consortia with other universities. That way none of them would have to individually pay a whole department full of productive scholars in a complete range of specialties, but could participate in a much stronger virtual department by contributing one or two.

-- Better use can be made of telecommunications in online research projects and scholarly communities. Scientists are pioneering this as we speak, making it up as they go, while conventional DL degree programs seem largely oblivious to the potential.

 

Good questions.

I think the practices of some online, mostly for-profit schools have associated distance education in many, many people’s minds with high-pressure predatory marketing, abuse of financial aid systems, and abysmal standards. I foresee much more emphasis being placed in future upon where one went to school, rather than the degree title, i.e. a bachelor’s from a solidly respected school carrying more weight than a bachelor’s, master’s, and doctorate from a legally accredited school that still somehow produces no scholarship and has no listed faculty.

 

I would imagine part-time programs do outnumber DL programs, but I wouldn't call DL programs "outliers." They're everywhere.

Funny, but one might think DL is ideal for reaching rural students, but at least in my city, they advertise like mad for local students.

I agree completely. It's pretty exciting, too. Imagine, say, living in the U.S. and pursuing a degree from, oh, I don't know, the UK. Very cool. One wonders what doors might be opened internationally from such an accomplishment.

I think the "Universidad del Azteca thread shows the need for that, as have arguments about Empresarial and others who sit out on the edge of recognition.

So true. I wish accredited schools--and their accrediting agencies--would pay attention to this devaluation of their brands.

This is the gripe I have about 100% non-residency. I think there's value in being there, what my wife calls "presencing." I also agree that some subjects fit the DL model andragogically better than do others.

Agreed. How can one "master" a subject without first getting the groundings/basics? I remember when it was common for someone without undergraduate credentials in the field of study would have to take prerequisite courses prior to entering the master's curriculum. I think this has been made worse by the DL cash cow.

I'm not convinced a "higher degree" is in our future. But I do see a proliferation in earning higher degrees, and this will inevitably include the doctorate. It is a competitive workplace, and workers are left with developing themselves and their qualifications. The internet has provided a conduit for a great number of people who could not before fit study into their lives. This dynamic alone increases demand and, in the human capital market, causes supply to increase as well.

I don't know. I've been doing this for more than 30 years and I haven't sensed any increase in employer awareness of such matters, as well as a distinct lackk of curiosity regarding the same.

Differentiation by whom? Almost certainly not employees and employers. One way: if those college ranking clowns got wise and figured out how to rank DL programs/schools. The associated publicity might raise some awareness.

I don't agree. This assumes that DL programs are less expensive to deliver, and I don't think they are. Whatever costs are saved in physical facilities are likely offset by increases in technologies, not to mention developing courses so they'll fit the format. Forming consortia is a great idea, but you've got technical hurdles galore to overcome, including incompatible schedules, computer systems, software, lesson designs, philosophies regarding content, etc. But I think it's an exciting idea since virtual consortia have a better chance of reaching a sufficient number of students to be sustainable.

Agreed. Traditional universities adding DL programs have enjoyed the initial benefits of (a) leveraging current course content into DL programs and (b) reaching populations with DL unreachable with traditional delivery methods. But saturation is sure to come, and I hope they'll be willing to get more creative. Oh, and hire Bill Dayson to consult with them, of course.

 

I've been noticing that in my field, specially in 3d animation/Visual Effects.

Practically every Master's degree in this subject here in the USA, even in the most prestigious schools (AAU, NYU, SCAD, CalArts, UCLA, , etc...) is actually a introductory degree.

The consequence of that is that, in a lot of cases, the guy with a BFA has way more experience, more classes and a better portfolio than the guy with the MFA.

And a guy with a BFA that decides to enroll in a MFA discovers that he will have basically the same classes that he had as an undergrad.

(By the way, that's one of the reasons people in my country, Brazil, put more weight in the BA than in any Master's degree. Our BA has 4 years in the same subject with a mandatory Thesis in the end (50-60 pages) that's pretty much in the level of a Master thesis here in the USA. It's very rare to be accepted for a Master degree in a different area than your BA)

 

I have a question. What sounds more impressive a person with a bachelors from UC Berkeley or someone with a BA from TESC and a masters from AMU?

I know my answer.

 

The first one sounds more impressive if that is your goal, to sound more impressive when you tell people where you went to school. However, when it comes to hiring someone for a job that requires an MBA or graduate degree, the person that went to AMU will get the job, regardless of impressiveness.

 

This is actually why I never pursued an MBA. I have a BS in Business. It seems that many MBA programs are designed as an entry-level degree for those with a bachelors in a different subject that want a business education. That said, there are schools out there that demand prerequisite courses in business to build upon but many don't.

 

And when it comes to hiring someone for a job which requires impressiveness the Berkeley resume will always get a look while the TESC/AMU one would not no matter how advanced the degree on it.

Depends on your career goals I suppose.

 

Outside of academia are there really a lot of jobs that "absolutely require" a graduate degree or an MBA? And if there aren't many, I would think a bachelors from UC Berkeley would trump a BA TESC/ Masters AMU. BTW I'm graduating from TESC and taking classes from AMU as well, and I've had good experiences with both but I'm also trying to be as unbiased as possible and think like most of the general public. I haven't seen any job listings that require a masters but then again I've been self employed most of my life so I could be wrong or I just may not be management material.

 

I work in banking and most of our job postings for management and upper-level thinking positions require a masters degree or specifically an MBA. I think this is becoming more common, at least in the baking industry...

 

Master of Baking Administration?

On a more on-topic note, for these types of jobs, are less brand-name MBAs more useful than they are than at big-wig jobs? Would an MBA from APU/AMU or University of Phoenix be considered respectable or even "good enough?"

I ask out of curiosity and concern for some of the posters here who have worried that their MBA would open NO doors for them unless they received it from a top 20 school.

 

I agree with both you and bazonkers. I was recently flown out to another state to meet with some CEO's of a private entity. I offered to give my resume to the head honcho, and he just said "Nope, don't need it, XXXX word regarding your work is proof enough, and you are hired". There is a desire for my MBA to be finished so I can display the MBA intials, but that is about it. Luckily, I am doing really well on my capstone, so I should be done soon! These guys had no desire, nor did they care where I got my degrees from. It was strictly what I could bring to the table.

Abner