Hi, Everyone, An administrator at a well-known university told me this week that enrollment is down across-the-board in all departments at his university in both online and on-campus classes, and he believes this is due, primarily, to the economy. Of course, UC-Berkeley Extension recently announced a program consolidation and layoffs: http://www.distance-educator.com/dnews/?name=News&file=article&sid=8073 Have you heard of enrollments being down significantly in any well-known, online, distance education programs? Conversely, have you heard of enrollments being up significantly in any online DE programs/courses? Names of the institutions are not necessary. I am just trying to get an idea of how much of an impact the current economy and the increasing amount of layoffs across the country may be having, in general, on online distance education programs and in enrollments in online courses. Thanks! Nellie
For what it is worth - a sample of two is not data - I know of two UK Business Schools - my own and a neighbouring School - where enrolments are up. In the other School's case it is in their on campus MBA programmes and in ours it is in our distance MBA programmes (up 18 per cent over 2001-02). As for others, I have not heard of serious problems. Some Schools in the UK this past year have dropped their MBAs or have withdrawn from certain overseas arrangements, but this appears to have more to do with a quality squeeze on sub-standard programmes or overseas regulatory loss of official approvals and licences than a turn down in demand. However, the recession in certain business sectors might, as usual, push up investment in education, counteracted by a demographic squeeze in Schools that recruit in the traditional 25-28 year old cohorts. As many more Business Schools are investing in distance learning and in on-line delivery than the case ten years ago, the market may appear more crowded than before. How many of these programmes will survive five years is another question. I expect that those who follow a distance teaching model rather than a distance learning model will drop off sooner.
From the article: "Our primary goal is to return UC Berkeley Extension to the vibrant state it once enjoyed," said Sherwood. "In order to meet the needs of our students, we need to respond quickly to changing economic conditions and restore the organization's financial health." As a self-supporting organization that receives no university or state funding, UC Berkeley Extension must reduce the cost of its infrastructure in proportion to overall lower revenues." Would someone please e-mail these folks and provide them with a clue? Something on the order of: IF YOU OFFERED DEGREES YOUR REVENUES WOULD SKYROCKET
Homer, this is interesting, a university that wants to be self sufficient, does not offer degrees and has no university or state funding..looks to me like someone has a new job and wants to keep it. J.R(ic)
John, yep and I wish them lots of luck in the "keep the job" department. I mean, no degrees and they're peddling stuff like basic real estate courses for $500. Aren't those courses available at community colleges for around one-third that price?
I don't understand the concluding remark. UC Extension is not a university. It's the University of California's community outreach arm, and it operates on a campus by campus basis. There's a Berkeley extension, a Davis extension, a UCLA extension and so on. Each of these serves different parts of the state, usually divided up by county. Oddly, Santa Clara county, home of most of Silicon Valley, falls within UC Santa Cruz's territory, not Berkeley's. But Berkeley operates a plush new extension center in Redwood City, about 20 miles north. Santa Cruz operates a similar center in the city of Santa Clara, I believe. The courses that UC extension offers are generally open admissions, although they often have prerequisites. Enrolling in them has nothing to do with being accepted into the University of California. UC Extension also offers public lectures and things like that. The most popular courses in my area (the SF peninsula) are continuing education computer courses that are offered to individuals who are already employed and who have degrees. UC Extension certificates are generally aimed at this kind of older, better educated clientele. Most of the instructors aren't regular UC faculty, but are drawn from other local colleges and often from industry. (adjuncts... ewww!) I've never taken any of these UC Extension courses, but from all accounts they are excellent. Many people in Silicon Valley take them, and some courses treat rather esoteric and sophisticated computer engineering and software subjects. The whole thing is self-supporting, and the size of the programs fluctuates according to demand. During the dot.com boom, the valley was rolling in cash and there was tremendous demand. Now the bubble has burst and the area woke up with a hell of a hangover. So UC Extension's enrollments are off, which was predictable I think. They've just gotta stay nimble, I guess.
I would agree with you if UC Extension and community colleges were competing head to head, but they aren't. Here's UC Berkeley Extension's current catalog offerings for EE and CS. Scroll down and take it all in. Pretty impressive, in my opinion. I don't think that you will find that community colleges offer a lot of this stuff. http://www.unex.berkeley.edu/cat/eng.html
Both the UC system and the Cal State System offer Continuing Ed courses including some for academic credit. I am taking a series of Geology courses for credit and eventually will earn a certificate from UC Riverside. Many of the people attending these classes are teachers who, I believe, must take a certain amount of credit per year. All the continuing ed courses are self supporting (no taxpayer support) and as a result they are able to hire any qualified person to teach courses. Not a bad way to get experience for anyone wanting to teach at college level.
The list is certainly impressive and a typical community college would probably offer only a fraction of those courses. On the other hand, I'll bet virtually all of them offer real estate, accounting, and introductory business courses, et al. Why does UCB bother trying to compete in those areas? I'm not the one complaining about the "recession" and "lack of revenues".......those responsible for running the extension are. For that matter, I haven't heard institutions such as UoP, Capella, and the like, complaining about the economy either. The point is that there is a viable solution here but, obviously, UCB wouldn't want to risk diminishing their "brand" by offering such things as =degrees= (or even some of the more popular certificates) via DL.
I have taken a couple of psych courses there and found them excellent, and actually better and more demanding than grad-level psych courses I subsequently took at a professional Sch of Psych.
