why now? https://www.forbes.com/sites/poetsandquants/2019/05/26/why-business-schools-are-shutting-down-their-mba-programs/#364394953685
This article could've been written without bringing politics into it. Not a fan. Anyway. The biggest thing I can think of is due to how many cheaper and easier options exist than a full-time on campus MBA. Illinois only dropped their on campus program, but not their online one. While the on campus option was losing applicants and enrolees, the online option was booming on all fronts. It's the time we live in. Why drive somewhere, look for parking, walk in the cold to a building, sit down for a few hours each week, drive home, only to have to go to work the next day when you can do it all from the comfort of your bed for less money? On paper there was no difference between the Illinois on campus and online option, so why would someone choose the first?
Because even in 2019 there still remains just enough people who think online education is substandard. However, compared to how things were 15 years ago the climate now is night and day.
I think you missed my point. On paper there is no difference. Your transcript and diploma are the same whether this degree was on campus or online. Given that, why would someone choose the on campus option? We can assume here that no employer will be able to tell that this degree was done online. It's not like a Phoenix degree or and SNHU degree if you live in Arizona. I'd you love in Illinois, you won't be able to tell the difference.
decreasing enrollment in the on-campus program + increasing enrollment in the online program + the general need to cut costs +that online programs can be run at lower cost than on-campus programs = close the on-campus program that's my equation
"I'd you love in Illinois???" Um, okay . . . But seriously, if both the graduate and potential employer are in Illinois, the employer will presumably know that UI switched totally to an online format and will simply ask the graduate which program he or she pursued. That is true . . . I, for example, think that online education is substandard. Big time. What irks me is when people assume that, because of the schools from which I graduated, my degrees were earned online. In fact, online education didn't even exist when I earned my degrees. Thankfully. Or I wouldn't have even bothered. Because I think that online education is, um, substandard. And, even today, I laugh at it. Get over it.
Given that last sentence, you seem confused by your own question. To that last question, as LA said, there are people who think online education is subpar, that's why someone would choose the campus option. People of that opinion don't care that the "transcript and diploma are the same whether this degree was on campus or online" nor do they care (or sometimes even believe) that the format, materials, lectures, textbooks and exams are the same. People of that opinion also tend to believe that butter churns and crank engine cars are the bees knees...
Nahh, B.S. I've been in this teaching gig for 16 years. Have two degrees earned the very old-fashioned way (I must be as old as you, Steve), and working on number two degree earned online. I've taught the traditional way for a total of three colleges/universities, taught online for four (with significant overlap), bazillions of classes, developed multiple classes online and on ground. So, I have some experience with this. Just sayin. There are some dinks who make online a crappy little experience, but not me and not most of my colleagues. I kick the daylights out of students and beat them up until they learn what the on ground students learn. They take the same tests, I've recorded dozens of hours of audio lectures, I respond to emails, they get the same basic experience--and some of the hate me for it...and I Do. Not. Care. The U of Illinois where I'm doing a masters of accountancy has live sessions in each class, two per week, tests that are killer tough, probably tougher than the very B&M Pac12 law school I attended during the Clinton Admin. I just studied about 20, maybe 25 hours for an advanced financial accounting course final and got all of 68% on it. I went through the entire UG accounting sequence and have been giving professional education seminars to accountants for 10 years--and that class still kicked my butt, was happy to pull a B. There is nothing inherent in the online gig that makes it substandard. Now if you want to take all online-only schools and compare them with B&M universities, I'm all over that and holding hands with you. But online is not ipso facto substandard. Of course, I know I'm falling into your trolly trap, but I think you're fun and don't really mind jousting with you. Heck, Steve, I'm a mean-as-snot curmudgeon myself, married the high school valedictorian who did her doctoral work in the STEM disciplines and likes to rhetorically dress me down for sport and play logic games with my mind, then laugh her butt off at me. I have been brought to my knees so many times, put in my place so many ways over the last 30 years, heck, I feel no more pain. Comfortably numb. Old enough to remember that reference. So bring it on, you can't say or do anything that hasn't already been done one-hundred times over. By the way, my teenage son is making money helping an old old friend who's an owner/operator who contracts with Atlas Van Lines and my kid's been riding along with him and providing muscle for money. Absolutely loving it and seeing the country.
