Why is the UC trouble struggling to recruit students?

Here is a great article on why the University of California has only managed to recruit 5 non-UC students. You read that right, FIVE non-UC students.

Eduventures | University of California Online Recruits Barely Any Non-UC Students. What should UC Online do now?

 

To be fair, UC Online Education has enrolled about 1,700 students from the various UC campuses since it started in January 2012. That's not a joke, considering they've only been running for a year and have only offered about 12 different courses.

On the other hand, UC Online has attracted virtually zero students from outside the UC system. This is presumably because you can't earn a UC degree or certificate through UC Online; you only get UC credits. Furthermore, those credits are expensive -- at $1,400 to $2,100 per class -- and there is no guarantee that they will transfer anywhere other than the UC system itself. Given those limitations, the lack of interest by non-UC students doesn't seem too surprising.

 

I agree with CalDog; without offering a degree would be hard to attract the students. Especially, when you'll lose your credits for transferring. Who would like to take the risk? If UC online offers degrees like CSU-Global; I am sure more student go to UC-Online.

 

I agree. No degree, what's the point?

 

Well, MOOCs don't offer degrees, or even credit. Yet Coursera now has enrolled over 1.7 million students. No degree, no credit, yet there seems to be plenty of interest.

So what's the difference? MOOCs, like UC Online, don't offer degrees (which is a minus) -- but MOOCs are free (which is a plus).

Conversely, other online universities are expensive, like UC Online (which is a minus) -- but other online programs do offer degrees (which is a plus).

For a non-UC student, UC Online combines the worst of both: they don't offer degrees (which is a minus), and they aren't free (which is also a minus). There is no obvious plus.

 

I wonder if this is reference to a particular program or school. UC Berkeley and UC Riverside have been offering on-line courses for years.
Besides the course costs quoted in the article are perhaps too expensive for most on-line students.

 

It's true that individual UC campuses have been offering online courses to their own students for years. But UC Online is a new initiative that allows online courses to be offered systemwide, as well as to non-UC students. So if a professor at (say) UC Davis develops an interesting online course, it can be offered to students at all other UC campuses -- and to anyone else in the world.

The idea was that this approach would draw huge enrollments -- like MOOCs, only better, because real credit was awarded. But so far, they aren't drawing the huge crowds, presumably because of the cost.

I actually think it could maybe work, but they would have to drop tuition by 80-90%. If you could enroll in an online class and earn real UC credits for a few hundred dollars, then maybe this would be a compelling alternative to the MOOCs. But at a cost of a few thousand dollars, maybe not.

 

Yes, that's what I was implying. Why spend the money when there is no degree?