The Great DL Depression: Is there is going to be a DL education crash?

A previous poster said that eventually younger students will demand a DL option, and it will ultimately save the industry. I agree in substance but disagree on time-line. I believe that DL cannot fail or even significantly decline at this point. We ALREADY demand that option, and we absolutely will fund convenience and fight for our credentials.

Additionally, the government always says it supports higher education and Obama has some pretty hefty goals for college attendance. I do not think he will allow DL to be damaged, and nobody important has a strong enough anti-DL agenda to stop him. Who wants to be the guy that is opposing innovation in education? I think it's a politically bad position to be in.
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I know the above was quick and crude, I haven't considered this possibility too deeply, but there it is, my first-brush opinion.

 

All of this is why I ultimately decided on Ashford against other schools. I wanted a B&M campus and school with a physical presence, sport teams, etc. even if it is a for-profit. Just so I could point and say, “See, look! Their basketball team did x” because people in Corporate America and actually the rest of the US seem impressed with sports teams, campuses, all of that.
Plus I decided to pursue this MBA with the understanding that I will be going on to get another degree after this from a widely recognized state public school (I have a few options, but I already decided on all of the above criteria) to augment my AU MBA. I never felt comfortable just ending and getting my last degree at a for-profit.

 

I would say UoP and places like them will certainly take a hit in the coming years, as for DL as a whole, most certainly not. Public university DL programs will continue to grow in enrollments and course offerings. People want to learn online, I do not think that will ever go away.

If UoP and schools like them (those who use questionable tactics) take a hit, I won't shed a tear. I am an admirer of DL, but not of UoP. If your fear is a lack of opportunity to teach, that would depend on your field not DL.

 

Yes, I agree. However, when the big monsters like UoP (and others) crash, there will be an overabundance of doctoral degree holders looking for work. The market for adjunct and and online adjuncts will be flooded with all of the instructors that used to work there and at similar places.

DL will never go away, which is what I said in my original post. But getting a teaching job is going to be very difficult for years after the big profit boys crash. It will be the Great DL Depression

 

I also think that the giants like UoP will not go away. They will, however, be forced to play fairly and their enrollment will significantly drop. Their employment of instructors will drop at the same rate.

 

One of the facts that has been pointed out is that there are almost 200 DL MBA programs in the USA. While I understand that "the business of America is business" it's hard for me to imagine that there will be a sustained need for so many programs. If a school has a B&M MBA program it may not cost much to extend this program and provide an online option but you still need some minimum number of students to make it sustainable. Are all these schools going to come up with a sufficient number of students year after year after year? I'm guessing that the answer is no. I think their only chance at long-term survival will be to market themselves strongly to the global marketplace. At some point in the future you'll need an MBA in order to be the night manager at McDonalds.

 

LOL. You will probably need a PhD to be the day manager!

 

No, I don't think so. The original post's DL/1929 analogy is fanciful and unconvincing.

I think that DL is here to stay and isn't going to be experiencing any sudden large declines.

Degreeinfo never discusses it, but on-campus classes are moving towards a more blended format, with syllabi, quizzes, worked examples, lecture notes, readings, illustrations and all kinds of supplementary materials and content online. On-campus students will occasionally enroll in online class sections because of scheduling conflicts or whatever. So the whole distinction beween DL and B&M is starting to blur. That's an irreversible trend, I think.

The day is gone when somebody can graduate from college and then assume that their education is completed. People will need to study continually throughout their lives, just in order to stay current in their fields. The tech industries here in the Silicon Valley have pounded that fact home. So obviously there's going to be a growing need for media that can deliver continuing education to already-employed adults wherever they are at.

The current economic recession has resulted in large numbers of people losing their jobs. Many of those jobs won't be coming back when and if the economy ever recovers. So there's going to be a large and growing middle-years retraining market as well, as people are forced to move into new career paths.

I think that the for-profit/non-profit distinction that hypnotizes Degreeinfo is a red-herring. It's getting a lot of press right now because the political left is in control here in the United States. The left has never really trusted the profit motive, seeing it as an expression of greed, both corrupt and corrupting. (Government is different, of course.) The current rhetorical jihad against for-profit education is being driven in large part by the teacher's unions. Diverting discussion away from academic credibility towards profit-motive damns academically good for-profits along with the bad, while essentially giving a free-pass to weak non-profits and state schools.

From the vantage point of students and employers, academic strength and credibility are going to be more important considerations. How much reliance can students and employers put on the education and training that schools ostensibly provide? Can an employer trust that a graduate knows his/her stuff and will be prepared to contribute? Can a student trust that completing a program will make him/her employable?

I do think that many employers are already wise to the fact that a great deal of higher education is commoditized. The for-profits typically (but not universally) treat degree programs that way. (They sell degrees as if they were cell phones.) DL typically (but not universally) does the same thing, awarding vocational degrees to students to whom 'ROI' is dollars-and-cents, and who in many cases have little personal interest in what they are studying and just want to get through the material as quickly as possible. Non-profits are as guilty of this as for-profits, since it's being driven by what the student market demands. We see exactly the same thing happening in the on-campus night-school vocational programs, so it isn't a DL specific issue either.

What we are likely to see is a growing employer differentiation between high-end academic degree programs and the more commoditized sort of degrees. The student market's demand for quick-and-easy degrees is going to collide up against the employer market's need for substantive degrees. In situations where advanced technical expertise is really needed and where degrees aren't just check-the-box requirements or tie-breakers, employers are going to be favoring graduates of what they perceive to be stronger programs.

The point that I want to emphasize is that this isn't a simple matter of degrees having some favored accreditation, it isn't a question of DL vs. B&M modality, nor does it revolve around the for-profit/non-profit distinction. Employers won't be refusing to hire non-RA grduates or DL graduates or graduates of for-profits. They probably won't be paying a whole lot of attention to those variables. They will be favoring graduates of programs that they believe possess valuable academic strengths.

 

Higher ed DL enrollments continue to increase at a rate 10 times higher than higher ed enrollments in general, so there is no indicator that DL will be going away or even decreasing. The latest research continues to affirm that DL learners are at no disadvantage and, in many cases, are at an advantage, compared to "traditional" classroom learners. If new regulations cause for-profit (and non-profit) institutions to modify their practices, it is likely that the for-profits will be able to do so more quickly and effectively than, say, bureaucracy-laden state universities.

Accrediting bodies are also under the radar and will also likely to be under similar scrutiny.

 

I agree with this to some extent. I myself even called my statement melodramatic. But the similarities are interesting and we could see a time when we go through a period decline caused by the likely restructuring, and some cases the demise, of the for-profit monsters.

 

I fully agree.

The prime example to date is Intel, which made headlines when it halted tuition reimbursements for employees studying with the University of Phoenix. Other companies, like Fedex and Lockheed Martin, now have similar policies. Intel found that "employees who didn't go to top-notch programs were losing out to those who did for promotions and new jobs," and stated that the change was "a reflection on Intel's culture and highly educated workforce".

Theoretically, no. But this is misleading, because in practice, some types of accreditation, modalities, and business models are more closely associated with "high end degrees". And other types of accreditation, learning modalities, and business models are more closely associated with "commodity degrees".

For example, Intel will not provide tuition reimbursement for business programs that are not AACSB-accredited, or engineering programs that are not ABET-accredited. This clearly contradicts the suggestion that employer policies won't be based on "some favored accreditation". In reality, if you are faced with a vast pool of degrees from a wide variety of schools, differences in accreditation are one of most obvious and simplest means of sorting them. This approach may or may not be ideal, but it's naive to suppose that employers won't use it.

The Intel approach does not necessarily preclude DL, since there may be AACSB- or ABET-accredited DL programs. However, I suspect that most or all of them are associated with accredited B&M institutions. If so, then in practice, a B&M program may be a prerequisite for an acceptable DL program.

Under the Intel approach, does the for-profit/non-profit distinction matter? Well, let's see -- how many for-profit business or engineering programs are AACBS- or ABET-accredited? I suspect the number is very low, possibly approximating zero.

 

But I'm thinking that if somebody creates a for-profit school that's competitive with the high-end non-profits in academic terms, then its graduates will probably experience similar professional acceptance.

My point is that the real variables are academic.

 

I concur. However, public opinion would take a long time to change because of the anti for-profit bias that has taken years to develop and is being strengthened in the media on a regular basis. Plus, academic rigor is a thing that is difficult to quantify. Even though a for-profit program may be created that can go toe to toe with the best B&M programs, how do you prove that to be the case? Only by the performance of graduates that is spread by word of mouth, I would guess.

Maybe we could develop some sort of a standardized scale of academic rigor. That actually might be an interesting idea to pursue. It could be administered by an independent agency that operates in a fashion that is similar to an accrediting body.

 

In the year 2000, AmericanIntercontinental University had 7200 ground students and zero online student. In the year 2008, they morphed into 30,000 online students and only 7200 ground students. If DL is going away, its growth needs to slow down.

 

The difference is that new regulations apply more do for-profits than non-profits. Incentive compensation for recruiters is generally a for-profit problem. Additionally, the 90/10 rule is exclusively a for-profit problem.

 

You will see Fin Aid to the profits stop or slow soon. Obama and most his staff are B&M grads, and with the public's loss in confidence in for profits, he might do something. I see this going down in a few years.

 

Can "he" do anything or does Congress need to change requirements?

 

I think these are the proposed rule changes.

http://www2.ed.gov/legislation/FedRegister/proprule/2010-3/072610a.html

Degreeinfo members are free to submit responses.

 

I like this; it would stop people from racking up $100,000 in debt for a photography degree that has the earning potential of 25k a year. ( I made those numbers up )

 

In theory, if such a school existed, then yes, you would be correct -- its for-profit status wouldn't matter, and its graduates would find professional acceptance.

But the point is that in practice, such schools currently do not exist. And you shouldn't expect to see them in the future either. The for-profit model doesn't encourage their development.

A high-end non-profit school only draws from the top 5-10 % of the potential applicant pool (as measured by things like grades or test scores). Such schools routinely reject the majority of applicants -- in some cases, the vast majority.

The for-profit schools have no incentive to limit themselves in this way. They are businesses, and like any business they seek to maximize profits. In general, businesses do not maximize profits by refusing to serve potential customers. On the contrary, the for-profit schools want as many customers as possible. So they accept virtually everyone who applies (assuming, of course, that their credit is good).

Now, there is not necessarily anything wrong with that -- there is certainly a place for schools that don't have rigorous admissions policies. But realistically, that place is not at the high end.