WSJ.com - Ivy League Schools Begin To Offer Online Courses

In today's Wall Street Journal they had a story entitled: Ivy League Schools Begin To Offer Online Courses.

I suspect you have to be subscriber to view the story, but it details the intentions of:

Harvard University - Intends to offer master of public health
Brown University - Developing medical-school curriculum
MIT & Cambridge - Considering use in professional-degree programs
Stanford University - Offering master of science in engineering

It is an interesting story if you can get your hands on the print version - or the online version (if you have access)

 

This is probably the same story: Elite Colleges Finally Embrace Web Degree Courses.

 

I'd really like to know why they even bother. After all, isn't success in the DL environment based upon economies of scale and, hence, inclusion? It seems to me that's wholly incompatible with the top-tier exclusionary mindset. I'm sure they're busting their bums trying to figure out how they can have it both ways but I just can't see how that's ever going to work.

 

Have it both ways.......sure they can, Home! Consider Liberty University, where to attend on campus you have to be a confessing christian, however, you can do DL without any such confession.

The elite schools can change the requirements for DL, and, probably will, to participate in the big $$$$$'s.

 

I agree they all want those "big $$$$$", Howard, but which requirements? Admissions? In order to see a UoP-type cash flow, those elite schools are going to have to lower existing standards considerably and I doubt they're willing to do that.

 

This is not necessarily true. For example, if you look at Carnegie Mellon's (top 5 computer science school) program in Software Engineering, the total cost for a master's is approximately $44,000. I suspect that they fill these classes and at least break even on them.

http://www.distance.cmu.edu/

Too rich for me, but if I had an employer who would pay for them, I'd apply in a heartbeat.

 

Columbia has been offering graduate engineering programs through their CVN program for years. They charge $3,000+ a course and have something over 400 students (I believe) taking courses. One of the ways they achieve some economy of scale is by offering open admissions to their certificate programs (assuming you have the prerequisites to take the course). Admission to their masters programs, of course, is harder, and that's where their Ivy League requirements come into play. I believe the program makes money, though, as many like the idea of taking courses through an Ivy League institution. However, at $3,000+ a pop, it is still going to be doable for only a small percentage of the DL crowd.

Tom57

 

Harvard University Gazette, Jan 9, 2003
Residency requirement changed to enhance flexibility for new models of learning

http://www.hno.harvard.edu/gazette/2003/01.09/08-residency.html

On the Provost's page are the new guidelines as well as information on their grant for distance learning innovations.
http://www.provost.harvard.edu/