I recently noticed that when I called Capella's help line that there was some statement to the effect that Capella has hit the 10,000 student stage. At two colloquias ago the CEO shared that the school then had 8,000 students. I know they have been advertising aggresively on WNPR and the major news magazines (Time, Newsweek, etc.). At this rate, they will surpass Nova Southeastern in the future. U. Of Phoenix may be another story. I heard some time ago they were around 52,000?
Hoo-ah! Great news to a fellow Capella learner. When you say "two colloquias ago," do you mean the one in Dulles in Oct? That's phenomenal growth for three months! Excellent news about the partnership with Wal-Mart, as well. It will be interesting to see how the student population grows from that alliance. Regards, Adrienne
Anyone any idea who the biggest DL provider is? I'm sure that I read somewhere that the Open University in the UK expects to exceed 150,000 students this year!
UK Open University is over 150,000. But it's not one of the biggest ones. Even Unisa is larger (post merger). The French "Centre National d'Education à Distance" (CNED) has nearly 200,000. The Chinese "China TV University System" (CTVU) is reported to have over 500,000 (and I have seen numbers as high as >3,000,000). Turkey's Anadolu University has about 600,000. Indonesia's Universitas Terbuka has about 400,000. India's IGNOU has about 250,000. Here's some data from an article in the journal Science in 1997 (D. Normile (1997), "Schools Ponder New Global Landscape," Science, 277, p 311): Anadolu University, Turkey 578,000 China TV University 530,000 Universitas Terbuka, Indonesia 353,000 Indira Gandhi National Open Univ. 242,000 Sukhothai Thammathirat Open University, Thailand 217,000 Korean National Open University 211,000 National Center for Distance Learning, France 185,000 The Open University, Britain 157,000 University of South Africa 130,000 (pre-merger, obviously) Payame Noor University, Iran 117,000 National Center for Distance Learning, Spain 110,000
Incidentally, one of the largest U.S. schools is UMUC. Worldwide enrollment is about 90,000 (with 10,000 graduate students). About a third are in the U.S.
Capella Adrienne, Two colloquias for me was about a year ago. I hope to attend my last (third) one next month in Atlanta. I'm in the Harold Abel School of Psychology. If you are in the school of business, education, technology, etc. you might attend others. Best regards...
In the US at least, it might just be Phoenix. They claim nearly 190,000 enrolled as of November http://www.phoenix.edu/mediarelations/index.aspx Angela
Re: Capella Right -- I'm in the School of Education. I considered attending the Atlanta session, but it coincides with our spring semester start-up, so I'll be heading across the pond in April for the one in Chicago (my first, then AZ in June for my second, and third hopefully next summer, wherever that may be). Regards, Adrienne
