Question re packages and branding

I understand there are now curriculum development companies that are more or less delivering packaged online degree programs marketed by existing brick-and-mortar universities as their distance learning arm. Are any of these companies selling the identical programs to multiple universities? Could, say, “Learn-Rite” sell the same MBA program to both Indiana State and Chicago, with the significant difference in tuition justified only by the "brand?"

 

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I believe the answer is yes. The first place I'd look is Pearson

https://www.pearson.com/us/

 

I’m in a field that’s not lucrative enough for the university to pursue such a thing, so this is new to me. I knew some institutions were purchasing entire program packages, but I supposed they had exclusive deals for unique materials, rather like the validation process for British institutions. The light has come on for me rather late.

I get that there are plenty of places where the education isn’t worth the price tag, but it strikes me as really unethical to charge more tuition for the exact same product.

 

The National Technological University (NTU) offered Business and Engineering degrees using other well-known Universities such as the University of Southern California, Southern Methodist University, etc. You learn the same material and curriculum and instruction supports, but your degree from NTU costs 40% less than the ones from SMU and USC. Until NTU acquired by Walden University, and the program no longer exists. A friend of mine earned his Bachelor of Science from Pennsylvania State University; there were several courses he used Straighterline.com material while paying full-tuition at PSU. Some of my former co-workers attended Western Governor University and Fort Hays State University; they took several classes through SkillPort/SkillSoft...but still pay full tuition at the universities.

 

For what it's worth and I am certainly no fan of the OPM model, they seem to be very careful to have the appearance of customizing the programs for each school. So that they can avoid direct comparisons, challenges with the accreditors, and maintain local faculty involvement. In practice though, the essence of the courses are often the same, with at best, only enough variation to mitigate the aforementioned two issues.