Cash Cow in Higher Education?

Discussion in 'General Distance Learning Discussions' started by TEKMAN, May 13, 2011.

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  1. TEKMAN

    TEKMAN Semper Fi!

    Are top schools using distance learning as their cash cow? I see lot of advertisement for their online programs include: Indiana University, Harvard University HES, University of Michigan, Duke University, University of Florida, UNC-Chapel Hill, and etc.
     
  2. SurfDoctor

    SurfDoctor Moderator

    It is likely that they are to some extent. When schools are losing state funding at every turn, funds from online classes may offer some relief.

    Most of the state schools that offer online degrees are also, I'm told, doing it to increase the availability of classes and to reduce the severe overcrowding in many schools.

    Students are loving it, including my daughter, because they can go online yet earn a degree from a B&M school and avoid a little of the stigma associated with online schools.
     
  3. mcjon77

    mcjon77 Member

    Probably, but so what?

    The exact same thing can be said for any executive MBA, and all of the part time engineering Master's programs. I have heard of law schools being referred to as cash cows, as well. The real cash cows are the programs that are paid for by the employers. The big question is are they offering something of value to their students and offering an important service to the community. My opinion on both of these issues is a resounding YES.
     
  4. landocalrissian

    landocalrissian New Member

    I can understand an underfunded state university using distance learning as supplemental funding, but it doesn't make since to me why Harvard would do it.

    The only degree programs I can truly see as "cash cows" are these Masters in Liberal Arts/Studies programs. They generally do not have competitive admissions and the degree doesn't lead to any kind of career preparation. While I can see the value in wanting to expand one's knowledge, this can usually be done in a non-university environment(aka a library). My father only has a high school education and he is a great example of a person who possesses a vast amount of knowledge. He didn't have to pay a university thousands of dollars in the process.
     
  5. ryoder

    ryoder New Member

    UF has massive billboards on the interstate in Tampa for their online MBA program. They have to make money too.
     
  6. Anthony Pina

    Anthony Pina Active Member

    Just as with other applications of technology, distance learning can reduce overall costs in the long run, but, in order to do it right, there is an up front investment in infrastructure, staffing, training and resources. Of course, there are some who try to incorporate DL using their existing infrastructure and staff and they end up with weak prograsm as a result.

    DL can be an excellent long-term strategy. It can be a very bad short-term fast-buck strategy.
     
  7. mcjon77

    mcjon77 Member

    While I'm sure Harvard makes some money off of the DL courses, it is really a drop in the bucket compared to the school's revenue/endowment. From the administrators and faculty that I have spoken with, they seam to be REALLY into the original mandate of the Harvard Extension school from over 100 years ago, to open up access to a Harvard education to the greater community. With DL, that community expands to the whole world.
     
  8. Anthony Pina

    Anthony Pina Active Member

    Of course, Harvard does not accept credits from its own online courses, which seems rather hypocritical to me.
     
  9. mcjon77

    mcjon77 Member

    This is not completely accurate. The decision to accept credits or not is determined by each individual school within the university. Harvard College doesn't accept credits, primarily (IMHO), because they don't want people thinking of the extension school as a backdoor method of getting into the undergraduate College.

    However, the Graduate School of Education, will allow you to take some classes at the Extension School (and several other Harvard and MIT schools) while a student at GSE, as partial credit to fulfill the requirement for a Master's degree.
     
  10. Anthony Pina

    Anthony Pina Active Member

    Yes, some extension courses can be used for degree programs, but Harvard will not accept its ONLINE courses toward any Harvard degree.
     
  11. mcjon77

    mcjon77 Member

    Do you have a source for this? Obviously, online extension courses count for degrees from Harvard Extension School. So, your original statement is false (unless you are trying to promote the nonsense that degrees from the Extension School are not REAL Harvard degrees). Furthermore, while I know of several (but not all) of the schools within Harvard that do not accept transfer credits from the extension school, I have NEVER seen any listing stating that a particular school at Harvard will accept courses from the Extension School, EXCEPT courses offered online.

    The statement makes no sense, which is why I doubt it. For one, most online courses are offered concurrently in class. No distinction is made on the transcripts that one course was taken online, and the other in class. There is no listing that shows whether the information security course I took this semester was in person or online.

    Second, of the courses that are offered SOLELY online, virtually all of them are recordings from regular courses at Harvard College, the Division of Engineering and Applied Sciences, the Graduate School, etc, NOT the extension school.

    Third, you keep referring to what "Harvard" will and will not accept, when in fact, we are talking about 12 separate schools within Harvard University, each with their own policies. I suspect that you may have heard of particular policy from specific schools within Harvard and are generalizing it to the whole university.

    Finally, the Extension School (or more specifically, the Division of Continuing Education) is a degree granting school within Harvard in its own right. Why would someone be so concerned about what classes they can transfer in to other schools within Harvard University? If you really want to go to those other schools, apply to them.
     
  12. Anthony Pina

    Anthony Pina Active Member

    My source is Dr. Donald H. Pfister, Dean of Harvard Summer School. Here is a quote from a letter written last year to the Chronicle of Higher Education:

    Harvard College does indeed count the liberal arts courses and study abroad programs toward a Harvard degree and, having vetted them through the academic departments and programs, the courses often carry credit in the General Education program. As a matter of policy Harvard College does not accept online course credit. Thus, the 14 online courses we offer cannot be used to fulfill degree requirements by Harvard College students. Indeed, no online credit from any institution can be used toward graduation.(emphasis mine).


    So, according to this Harvard Dean (who, presumably, should know), while Harvard extension may allow its online courses to apply to its own degrees, Harvard College (the university's undergraduate college) does not accept its own (or others') online courses.
     
  13. mcjon77

    mcjon77 Member

    You are referring to Harvard College not accepting "it's own online courses". Those courses ARE NOT offered by Harvard College. They are offered through the Extension and the Summer Schools. It would be like talking about Harvard Medical School accepting "its own" law courses, when in fact the law courses are offered by Harvard Law School.

    Harvard College is a critical part of Harvard University, but it is not Harvard University. The college is one of 12 schools within the university. The college confers just 2 of the 39 different types of degrees that Harvard grants.* The College confers about 22% of the over 7,000 Harvard University degrees every year.

    In your original post you referred to "Harvard" not accepting "its own online courses" toward credit for a degree as seeming hypocritical. What we now know is one school of Harvard (Harvard College) will not accept the online credits from another school of Harvard (the Division of Continuing Education, which controls the summer school and the extension school).

    However, the school within Harvard that does offer online courses (the Extension School) DOES allow those courses to be used for its degrees (degrees, I might add, that are just as much "Harvard degrees" as those handed out by any of the other 11 schools that make up Harvard). That doesn't seem overly hypocritical to me. Each school sets its own policies.

    If you had stated that Harvard College (1 of the 12 degree granting schools) refused to accept the online courses of Division of Continuing Education, I would have had no issue with it. If you had stated that the College accepted the some of the residential Summer School courses, but not the online courses, I would have no issue with it. However, that is not what was stated.

    Please don't think that I am trying to attack you on this issue. My only goal for being so precise on these points is to make sure that misinformation doesn't get perpetuated without correction. Trust me, there are hypocritical things that happen at Harvard, but (IMHO) this isn't one of them.

    * The following degrees are granted by Harvard College: AB and SB.
    The following degrees are granted by by the other 11 schools within the university: SM, AM, PhD, ME, MBA, DBA, DMD, DMSc, MArch, MAUD, MLAUD, MDes, MLA, MUP, DDes, MDiv, MTS, ThM, ThD, EdM, EdD, MPA, MPAID, MPP, MUP, JD, LLM, SJD MD, MMSc, MPH, MS, DPH, DS,AA, ALB, and ALM
     
    Last edited by a moderator: May 16, 2011
  14. AUTiger00

    AUTiger00 New Member

    To back up whatmcjon said, I know for a fact that HKS will accept courses from the extension school towards it's degrees and at least one of those courses was/is offered online. The kicker is HKS students have to pay HKS tuition rates for extension school courses counting towards their degree (a rate roughly 3x the HES rate).
     
  15. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    And HKS is ... ?
     
  16. AUTiger00

    AUTiger00 New Member

    Harvard Kennedy School (of Government). All the schools here use acronyms, so it's HKS, HBS, HLS, HSPH, HGSE, HES, etc. etc. etc.
     
  17. Ted Heiks

    Ted Heiks Moderator and Distinguished Senior Member

    Thanks....
     
  18. Anthony Pina

    Anthony Pina Active Member

    I do not view this as an attack at all. You were merely correcting an instance where I should have been more precise in my language and I am happy to be corrected. I am well aware that Harvard College is the university's undergraduate school and that Harvard's other schools award a myriad of graduate degrees. In fact, a couple of these degrees (EdD & DBA) were invented at Harvard, due to the fact that the School of Education and the Business School wanted to offer their own terminal degrees and Harvard Corp. only allowed the PhD to be awarded by the College of Arts & Sciences.

    Now, back to regular programming: As you rightly pointed out, I should have said something like "If one pays $2,640 to take, say, Stat S-100 Intro to Quantitative Methods" online, Harvard College (which also offers Stat S-100) will not accept your course toward a degree. However, if you take Stat S-100 face-to-face Through Harvard Extension/Harvard Summer School, your course will transfer." The same is true of other courses offered by Harvard College and by Harvard Extension--only the online versions will not transfer. Harvard Summer School lays it right on the line in its section for current Harvard undergraduate students wishing to take summer courses "You may not count courses taken online toward your Harvard degree."

    I would be thrilled to learn that the various graduate schools at Harvard are more enlightened than the undergraduate school. Also, I would NEVER insinuate that the associate, bachelors and masters degrees offered by Harvard Extension are not true Harvard degrees.
     
  19. friendorfoe

    friendorfoe Active Member

    Bingo! Any program that offers PDU's or CPE's or any sort of professional development hours are cash cows by design.

    Not that there is anything wrong with this. I've said it many times before, higher education is a marketplace and subject to market conditions whether schools like to admit it or not.
     

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