Online Degrees Out of Reach

Inside Higher Ed
January 08, 2025

“Fewer than half of students at the largest nonprofit online institutions earn a degree after eight years. Is it an unfortunate reality or a cry for accountability?”
https://www.insidehighered.com/news/tech-innovation/teaching-learning/2025/01/08/large-online-colleges-students-struggle-earn

“Part-time, first-time students in online programs have an even harder time achieving completion. At both SNHU and Grand Canyon, only 14 percent of that population in the IPEDS cohort earned an award after eight years. At Liberty, 19 percent did.

The average eight-year national completion rate for all students is around 65 percent, according to a December report from the National Student Clearinghouse.”

 

I was just going to share this article. I have two things to nitpick over. Grand Canyon was for-profit until 2018, which is mentioned in the article. The spokesperson for Grand Canyon blames the low graduation rate for the 2015-2016 cohort on the university having been for-profit.

The second issue that the article did not address is that Purdue Global was for-profit Kaplan University when this cohort started. Not that I think Purdue Global has drastically improved since being purchased; I don't know that it has. It's just an important piece of information for accuracy.

I was already aware of Liberty Online's low graduation rate, and I'm not surprised to read that SNHU, which proudly modeled itself after University of Phoenix, also has a low graduation rate. Yet, all of these schools are still better than Capella.

 

Let me add my 3 cents. I started at LU in August 2019, taking courses in the PhD program in History. It was tough. The comps courses, 4 in total ( 77 books in 7 months, reading alone, with 4- 6 hour final examsof 20 to 25 pages each), separated the folks who could be successful and those that could not be. That being said, LU did not take one single course from my MA program at North Carolina Central University nor the four doctoral classes at the University of Houston ( too old they stated). I was hyper focused to finish after the trials and tribulations I had at UNISA. I defended my dissertation in January 2024 and graduated with a 3.96. Now, we lost a lot of folks during my almost 5 years at LU. Some had some serious talent, but life got in the way ( two walked away during the dissertation phase that I know of, some washed out early). I think some thought that a PhD would be fun to attain, but when they started to take these classes, the involvement level may have been too much. I treated each class like the NCAA Basketball Tournament, survive and advance. All of my classes were 8 week courses, so time management was a premium. The professors in the program are top notch and were there for the students. My dissertation chair still is there ( we texted as late as yesterday, my proposed journal article was too long...lol). That is my story. As Rich states, "YMMV" ( Your Milages May Vary)

 

As I understand it, graduates receive a degree from Purdue Global, not Purdue University.

 

First, congratulations on your achievement.

Related, that's why we see a lot of writing here about doing one, but almost no one actually does. It's not that they're bad people; it's because doing a doctorate mid-life is a very hard thing to do.

 

Doing a doctorate at any point is difficult. I have elsewhere said, though, that I think doing a D/L degree is much harder than doing the degree in residence. The lack of community and concentrated resources makes staying focused that much harder.

 

Yes, those things make it harder. No doubt.

There are things that make it easier, though, for mid-career professionals attempting a DL degree. First, they often have the means for doing so. Second, they have often been through other rigorous challenges. Third, they can often embed their research or studies into their professional roles. Fourth, DL programs are often administered with busy people in mind. And finally (because I'm tired of typing this list), such programs are often designed and delivered with flexibility that make it easier for these students to manage their studies.

 

On the other hand, resident programs can be funded and offer the chance to work closely with a leading scholar in one's field.

 

Why does it matter if someone completes a degree? "college" isn't for everyone. Online programs make it easier for an institution to cast a wider net for potential graduates by attracting non-traditional students or, according to the article, "...those left behind by traditional higher education models..." but a lot of those folks left behind in those models were left behind because they weren't motivated by or interested in or capable of the work needed at the college level - and that's fine. Maybe it wasn't their path - but for some, those online programs are a gateway to completing a degree and offer opportunities that didn't really exist before. Maybe some take a few classes and decide that college isn't for them - for whatever reason - that's a good thing, not a bad thing. They can pursue other training or other occupations - society needs all kinds of workers with all kinds of different skills and not all of them come from a degree program. I think the metric of completion rates is important, but shouldn't be given as much weight as it seems to be given.

 

I didn’t find anything in the article that states whether these online degree programs are synchronous or asynchronous. I believe how the online program is designed (synchronous versus asynchronous courses) is a significant factor in students successfully completing courses and graduating.

Rene

 

Because they go into a lot of debt to take courses and HR filters out non-degree holders pretty consistently.

On the subject of the low completion rate, I think that many people would benefit from learning study skills since many are not prepared for university level study. Similarly, the need to take non-credit remedial courses is important but also provides a stumbling block for students. Figuring out financial aid is byzantine and can leave people super confused. Poorly designed courses also cause issues. I've dropped out of one course where due dates were completely divorced from the dates listed in the syllabus, so it was difficult to know what was actually expected from me.

Anything that adds friction makes it more difficult for a student to get through the next course.

 

My personal opinion is that there is nothing wrong with people trying college and not finishing, but that's without taking taxpayer-funded grants and the student loan debt problem into consideration. From a policy standpoint, there is a major concern that the growing popularity of online programs with open admissions is contributing to higher student loan debt and more defaults. When you have politicians pushing for student loan forgiveness, this draws more attention to the graduation and job placement rates of online programs.

 

I guess I mean, I'm not sure why people not completing degrees is somehow a mark against the institutions. It's kind of like people deciding not to actually go to the gym after purchasing a gym membership and then blaming the gym for not completing their exercise program.

 

One word: cost. People aren't as critical of the low graduation rates of CCs because they're much cheaper, and many of their programs are intended for transfer anyway. People don't care about failure to utilize gym memberships because they're not that expensive, gyms are not lying about the benefits of exercise, and taxpayers are not paying for gym memberships. Some institutions of higher education are earning billions of dollars off of federal and state financial aid programs while not caring whether their students graduate or realize a positive ROI. If you market anything else as something that is supposed to help people, and it doesn't, you would have regulatory agencies coming down on you.

 

Yes, Purdue Global's standing is odd. It is not fully a part of the Purdue University System, and it is a quasi-public university. Its legal status is as a public benefit corporation. Unlike the public university systems in my state, I believe that all Purdue University System schools issue the same diploma, with the exception of Purdue Global.

 

I would strongly agree. Speaking for myself, I earned three associates, a Masters, and a Grad Certificate all online through asynchronous courses. (My BS I got earlier in life)... Given my work schedule I could not have even attempted these if the courses were synchronous.

 

These schools take in nontraditional students who may have a lot of things going on. They lose interest or don't have the time. Also those figures seem cherry picked. SNHU, TESU, Perdue Global, WGU and UMPI have tons of graduates.

 

I do not think ROI is the most important factor in choosing anything ever. That said, neither is it irrelevant. If you are interested in earning an MSW, for instance, a program whose total cost to you will be $50,000 at the school of your dreams but $30,000 at a state university should suffer from the comparison, assuming both degrees lead to licensing.

That's why I've said for YEARS around here that unless you are set on an academic career or a Big Law job in NYC (or to some extent have serious federal government ambitions), get the cheapest ABA JD you can manage.

And if you're a mid-career seeker in California, look HARD at one of the University affiliated CalBar accredited schools.