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Paul Mannet
If it’s not a revolution, online education is certainly an
upheaval that’s going to replace a big chunk of what currently exists in the
higher education world.
My view - perhaps politically incorrect - is that there are
two classes of college students in this country: those who can pursue largely
academic interests because they are wealthy or smart enough to get scholarships,
and those who are mainly in need of real-world career training. The problem is
that the vast majority of students fit into the latter group, but our college
and university system is designed primarily to serve the former.
We need philosophers, historians and writers in our society
- but we have far more school capacity to train people in those specialties than
we really need. When I attended college in the 1970’s, virtually all my friends
were English or political science majors with no career goal. After graduation,
most drifted into law school, which put them onto a fairly viable career track.
But things have changed. It’s much harder today to “drift” into a successful career.
Every specialty, including law, has become far more competitive and demanding
in terms of skill sets. I never cease to be amazed by magazine articles and
complaints from “Occupy” people that they can’t get a good job after spending
four years to get a degree that gives them no usable job skills whatever.
Online learning has become part of the solution to this
problem by making a very wide number of associates and bachelor’s degree
programs available with a sharp focus on career training and by exerting, for
the first time in decades, at least some downward pressure on higher education
costs.
A hot issue is that this category was initially served
mainly by for-profit schools that now engender a lot of debate. But the
criticism of for-profit schools overlooks two key facts:
1) A lot of the people who need online education
are not traditional college age kids, but adults returning to college, and the
traditional colleges and universities has been extremely slow to address their
needs.
2) The world of the for-profit schools is changing,
not so much due to government regulation (in my opinion) but because their
business model is being challenged by new non-profit online schools and even
some private and state schools who have finally woken up to online education.
Even within the for-profit school sector, there’s a newer group of schools who
are delivering degree programs at more affordable tuition levels than what was
the norm just a few years ago.
Schools like Western Governors University, an unusual
non-profit school, have stepped up and made a big step into online education
while keeping the price reasonable. Perhaps more importantly, we’re seeing
schools like The University of Southern New Hampshire, a heretofore little-known
state institution, get national attention quickly by launching big online
learning programs. Unlike such famous flame-outs as the U. of Illinois’ “global
campus” a few years back, Southern New Hampshire’s initiative seems to have
real legs.
There’s no way to guarantee that the quality of all online
degree programs will be equal. But frankly, the same can be said of brick and
mortar schools. Both the traditional colleges and the existing online schools
are going to see growing competition from schools that can bring a good
reputation and affordable tuition to the online degree sector - because it’s
what more and more students want. More here on affordable online degree
programs:
http://www.successdegrees.com/go...
See Questions On Quora
Continue reading...
If it’s not a revolution, online education is certainly an
upheaval that’s going to replace a big chunk of what currently exists in the
higher education world.
My view - perhaps politically incorrect - is that there are
two classes of college students in this country: those who can pursue largely
academic interests because they are wealthy or smart enough to get scholarships,
and those who are mainly in need of real-world career training. The problem is
that the vast majority of students fit into the latter group, but our college
and university system is designed primarily to serve the former.
We need philosophers, historians and writers in our society
- but we have far more school capacity to train people in those specialties than
we really need. When I attended college in the 1970’s, virtually all my friends
were English or political science majors with no career goal. After graduation,
most drifted into law school, which put them onto a fairly viable career track.
But things have changed. It’s much harder today to “drift” into a successful career.
Every specialty, including law, has become far more competitive and demanding
in terms of skill sets. I never cease to be amazed by magazine articles and
complaints from “Occupy” people that they can’t get a good job after spending
four years to get a degree that gives them no usable job skills whatever.
Online learning has become part of the solution to this
problem by making a very wide number of associates and bachelor’s degree
programs available with a sharp focus on career training and by exerting, for
the first time in decades, at least some downward pressure on higher education
costs.
A hot issue is that this category was initially served
mainly by for-profit schools that now engender a lot of debate. But the
criticism of for-profit schools overlooks two key facts:
1) A lot of the people who need online education
are not traditional college age kids, but adults returning to college, and the
traditional colleges and universities has been extremely slow to address their
needs.
2) The world of the for-profit schools is changing,
not so much due to government regulation (in my opinion) but because their
business model is being challenged by new non-profit online schools and even
some private and state schools who have finally woken up to online education.
Even within the for-profit school sector, there’s a newer group of schools who
are delivering degree programs at more affordable tuition levels than what was
the norm just a few years ago.
Schools like Western Governors University, an unusual
non-profit school, have stepped up and made a big step into online education
while keeping the price reasonable. Perhaps more importantly, we’re seeing
schools like The University of Southern New Hampshire, a heretofore little-known
state institution, get national attention quickly by launching big online
learning programs. Unlike such famous flame-outs as the U. of Illinois’ “global
campus” a few years back, Southern New Hampshire’s initiative seems to have
real legs.
There’s no way to guarantee that the quality of all online
degree programs will be equal. But frankly, the same can be said of brick and
mortar schools. Both the traditional colleges and the existing online schools
are going to see growing competition from schools that can bring a good
reputation and affordable tuition to the online degree sector - because it’s
what more and more students want. More here on affordable online degree
programs:
http://www.successdegrees.com/go...
See Questions On Quora
Continue reading...
