David Gray, CEO of UMassOnline; the UMassOnline executive team; Marcellette Williams, UMass Senior Vice President for Academic and Student Affairs; and
the delegates from China Continuing Education Association gathered in Boston to discuss details of the partnership.
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Prominent Universities Tap New Markets with Online Education
From the April 2008 Issue of InFocus (PDF)
Traditional, brand-name public universities are reaching out to new regional, national and international student markets with their online program offerings. Institution leaders recognize that online education can enable them to serve more students, expand access to higher education for working adults, and also, potentially, generate new revenue.
Crossing Boundaries
Recently, UMassOnline announced that it was expanding into new territory. The University of Massachusetts’ online entity is partnering with the China Continuing Education Association (CCEA) and the Chinese Education and Research Network (CERNET) to deliver 40 online programs and courses to the Chinese students beginning in the spring of 2009, pending final approval by the Chinese Ministry of Education.
“We at UMassOnline feel honored and privileged—and challenged—by this tremendous opportunity to forge something that until now has been an important, if elusive, long-term goal of continuing education,” explains David Gray, Chief Executive Officer of UMassOnline.
UMass formed an academic and research partnership in 2006 with Tsinghua University. Both CCEA and CERNET are affiliated with Tsinghua University, which has a close relationship with the Chinese Ministry of Education. UCEA and CCEA also have had a very fruitful collaboration since 2006 and have jointly sponsored two continuing higher education fora for their members: in Boston in November 2006; and in Beijing in November 2007.
Currently UMassOnline has 71 degree and certificate programs that span the disciplines and are offered by the five UMass campuses in Amherst, Boston, Lowell, Dartmouth and Worcester. UMass Online also has a variety of blended programs, offerings boosted last year by a $650,000 grant from the Sloan Foundation. Since its inception in 2001, UMassOnline, has grown considerably. Fiscal year 2008 at UMassOnline saw a 26.2 percent increase in enrollments, to 33,900 over 26,855 in fiscal year 2007.
Gray sees online education playing a commanding role in continuing education. “Serving as an agent that can bring together students and educators anywhere and everywhere in the world is a wonderful and important niche that continuing education can productively occupy,” he says.
Launching a World Campus
The Pennsylvania State University was among the first institutions to put programs online when it launched its World Campus in 1998. What began as a pilot program with 41 students has grown to include learners from all 50 states and from 43 countries. Geared toward working adults in their 30s, World Campus currently serves 5,691 students, an increase of 31 percent over last year’s enrollments. And the University anticipates a steady increase. “We are expecting to grow to 50,000 enrollments by 2013-14,” explains Wayne Smutz, Associate Vice President for Academic Outreach and Executive Director of Continuing and Distance Education at Penn State. Forty-seven percent of the World Campus students are in-state and 49 percent are out of state, with 4 percent, international.
World Campus offers 54 total programs—9 graduate degrees, 16 graduate or postbaccalaureate certificates, 13 undergraduate degrees, and 16 undergraduate certificates—and is adding two more four-year bachelor of arts and bachelor of sciences degrees in Psychology available by summer of 2008. The degrees will be aimed at location-bound adults.
Starting Local
The University of Illinois also plans to vastly expand online education through Illinois Global Campus launched earlier this year. According to Charles Evans, Assistant Vice President and Director, University Outreach and Public Service at the University of Illinois, Global Campus will initially target state needs.
“Our plan is to begin with a focus on the unmet need in Illinois then expand regionally, nationally, and internationally. Our target market is defined by potential students interested in high-demand programs which are consistent with the academic strengths of the University of Illinois. The RN-BSN is a good example since our College of Nursing is consistently one of the top five Colleges of Nursing in the United States,” Evans notes.
Currently Global Campus offers two bachelor’s degrees, three master’s degrees, and four certificate programs. Sixteen more master’s degrees and certificate programs are being developed. All degree and certificate programs are created in collaboration with the colleges and academic departments at the University’s residential campuses at Urbana-Champaign, Chicago, and Springfield. Global Campus enrollments currently number 41, all of which are new, off-campus students. The enrollments continue to grow, with annual growth rates in the 20 percent range. Sixty-percent of enrollments are in-state, while 38 percent are national and 2 percent international.
Eventually the Global Campus will seek to develop agreements with major Illinois and national employers and a select group of international universities.
Focusing on State Needs
Since the University of North Carolina system began its UNC Online program in July of 2007, the demand for offerings has grown exponentially, driven in large part by older, working North Carolina residents, who do not live within commuting distance of one of the 16 UNC campuses.
“The primary goal is to expand access to higher education for North Carolina residents,” explains Alan Mabe, Vice President for Academic Planning and University-School Programs at UNC. “Another goal is to expand the array of courses available to on-campus students,” he continues. Of 175,080 students taking on-campus courses in spring 2007, 5.8 percent of them also took at least one distance education course.
This focus on the needs of the state has been the backbone of UNC Online’s mission. “UNC must accommodate an anticipated increase in students that could be as high as 80,000 in the next 10 years,” says Mabe. “That growth cannot be fully addressed on campus. Online education plays an important role in realizing the University’s goals of serving all regions of the state, promoting economic and workforce development, and community outreach,” he says.
UNC online accommodates both on-campus and off-campus students by offering 171 degree, certificate, and licensure programs; more than 100 are degree programs. In fall 2007, 17,579 students were enrolled in one or more online courses offered by a UNC campus, with approximately 86 percent being in-state. In spring 2007, students who were 26 and older accounted for 82.3 percent of distance education enrollments compared to only 23.3 percent of on-campus enrollments.
Although most of the students on UNC Online are in-state, expanding the audience is part of the long-term plan. “Out-of-state enrollments are growing as the overall number of distance education students grows,” remarks Mabe. “Increasingly, certain programs will be marketed to out-of-state audiences where there are niche opportunities, and programs will grow in those areas.”
—Kandace Gilligan |
