It never ceases to amaze me...

why some folks write things like this.

Just when Distance Education getting it's groove on, and picking up momentum some are still saying it's a SOON TO DIE passing phase??

I disagree 110%! More people I personally know are taking online courses today then just a few years ago.

Adult students' interest in online education is flat, study finds | Inside Higher Ed :bsflag:

 

Distance learning is here to stay, I agree. However, I have a feeling that we are due for a correction, much like the stock market experiences.

 

" correction " do you mean in the for-profit area? If so I agree with you, it needs to be checked.

 

I'd agree that a "correction" might be due. The primary piece of evidence that I'd point towards is the fact that the US higher education systen is currently offering almost 200 distance learning MBA degree programs. Do we really need that many MBA grads? Sooner or later these programs will begin to close. Those that remain will be the top of the line name brand programs and then the lower end cheaper programs. The degrees in the middle (cost lots of money but don't have great brand-name recognition) will die a slow painful death (with the exception of mercy killing).

One area that I predict will continue to remain strong is MEd programs, especially within state university systems.

 

It's called being DL challenged!

 

Every year, the Sloan people publish a comprehensive report on the status of distance/online learning (SloanConsortium.org)

Key report findings for 2011 (the most recent) include:
• Over 6.1 million students were taking at least one online course during the fall 2010 term, an increase of 560,000 students over the previous year.
• The 10% growth rate for online enrollments far exceeds the 2% growth in the overall higher education student population.
• 31% of higher education students now take at least one course online.
• Reported year-to-year enrollment changes for fully online programs by discipline show most are growing.
• Academic leaders believe that the level of student satisfaction is equivalent for online and face-to-face courses.
• 65% of higher education institutions now say that online learning is a critical part of their long-term strategy.
• However, there continues to be a large and consistent minority of academic leaders (about 35%) concerned that the quality of online instruction is not equal to courses delivered face-to-face.

 

There is a good book to get from the library called,"The Idea of a University of a University John Henry Newman" edited by Frank M.Turner and published by Yale University Press in 1996. The book addresses issues concerning the establishment of a university in Ireland by Newman in the 19th century and the various arguments about what is a university.

There is a contribution in the book by Landow who discusses the concept of an electronic university. He is quite prophetic and equates the introduction of the internet to education to the introduction of the printing press and the revolution it caused to university education. Prior to the printing press, scholarly endeavors where confined to the exchange of letters and mass education was not possible.

The mass education was confined to the geographical confines of universities and their libraries, however, a further unshackling of scholarly interaction has occurred by the introduction of tghe internet. It is now global and asynchronous. It is now low cost as well. The opportunity for mass teriary education is now a reality.

This, of course, has economic repurcussions. It may cause the redistribution of power that educational advances has historically caused. When more people became literate, then political and economic powerbases changed. Many will seek to resist this.

My prediction is the shakeout will occur to the cost structure. I believe that distance learning has a high cost structure that is unreasonable. B & Ms are seeking to argue that they need Bricks and mortar and that this should be replicated in DL costings. The scholarly community is now more virtual than physical and universities need to reflect this. It is somewhat analagous to the proponents of battleships in the face of airpower.

 

The internet is just a fad. Them dang hippies with their I-phones and newfangled gadgets and whatnot. Commies, the lot of them!

 

Yea, some folks just hate the idea of DE, however it IS everywhere now, that cannot be helped I suppose. I also see B&M High schools use it so much more now as well, which IMHO is a good thing.

There are ads all over the place now as well - but the for-profit thing is a bit troubling to me. Watch dog groups seem to be taking a closer look at that way of doing business. However, as one distinguished member of this group once posted "do you think the non-profits are NOT making money"? So true, maybe they just hide it better. :eek5:

 

Na, people just associate the term non-profit with some element of social goodness, and for-profit with some element of social stigmatism, independent of operating realities.

Here is how the math works (BTW I now use the term ‘investment driven’ instead of for-profit):

Investment Driven Model: Collect $1 of tuition. Pay %35 in taxes so has .65 cents to use for operations including paying faculty and overhead.

“Non-profit”: Collect $1 of tuition largely from federal student loans, subsidized with a matching $1 from state coffers raised from local tax payers, and receives .20 cents from ancillary activities like research grants, sports teams, so on. Pays no tax (non-profit = tax exempt). So has $2.20 to use for operations including paying faculty. However, many “non-profits” are also land grants, so cost of operations is reduced as primary capital outlay for facilities is lower, land taxes are eliminated, and so on.

 

Corporate taxes are levied based on net profits, not gross revenues. Don't you run a business school?

 

Fair point but the basic example still stands.

 

Many states the high schools are changing the graduation criteria to include students having to take at least two of their courses online instead of in the classroom..

 

I just hope things like this don't do anything to damage DL....

Sites offering to take courses for a fee pose risk to online ed | Inside Higher Ed

 

This is a good point, identity management is going to have to improve across the board. This is why many (most, all?) school require the proctored exams, which goes a long way, but if someone were to fake a photo ID most educational systems would break down not just DL..