Grand Canyon Uni: 86K online students, over 960 Million in revenue.

Reads like an ad. Or, more likely, "sponsored content."

GCU is trying to take the school to non-profit status, but they're struggling with a buy-out that will satisfy the DoE.

 

Over 108,000 enrolled students??? Goodness, that is an insane amount of enrollment. To have a 1:20 faculty to student ratio, they’d need over 5,400 instructors…

 

It's reasonable to assume that instructors teach more than one course. It is also reasonable to assume they do have thousands of adjunct faculty under contract.

When I was a UoP, our enrollment was twice that and still rising. Our single campus had hundreds of adjuncts. Personally, I was training 20-or-so new ones every few months.

 

Good point about teaching multiple courses. Like you said, that is still a 1,500 - 2,500ish instructors, if they all teach more than 1 course.

It must be pretty sustainable for the university but I’d be curious what the turnover rate is? Do the instructors typically stay long term or are they bringing in new folks to teach courses on a regular basis?

 

I have only an anecdote, rather than data. It was my experience that variance, not the mean, that was the issue. I had a reliable circle I could turn to, even for last-minute course assignments. I also had a revolving door of one-and-done instructors. Even though they spent a month's worth of Saturdays in training (including assignments during each week) getting certified to teach, so many bailed after actually doing it. The main cause? Andragogy. Some people just couldn't get the hang of it.