As I was driving home yesterday, I heard a radio ad on a local station (I’m in Winnipeg) promoting University of Phoenix. Surprised me. I did not realize that they are that progressive in extending their reach. I’ve seen their ads in newspapers, magazines, and websites…so I’m not sure why it was a bit of a jolt. Perhaps I see radio as being a more local media. Regardless, U of Phoenix is in everyone’s backyard. Until recently, higher education/training gained much of their strength geographically. Students in your area were your captive market. The product being sold was a “course” and credentials. Now, any online school has the ability to reach into any market. All of the courses listed in the U of Phoenix ad are offered by my employer Red River College.
U of Phoenix will always “out course” university and college courses. They’re organized, have production-line efficiency, hire staff on an as-needed, program basis (resulting in reduced costs associated with tenure/unions), have a business model, have developed a recognized brand name, etc. Colleges and universities cannot compete against corporation-style education (look at some of the high profile failures over the last two years – Fathom, NYUOnline). The higher education model is not based on marketing and business metrics (yet).
If we can’t build a better course, how can we compete? Stop thinking courses…start thinking communities, learning, accreditation, evaluation of prior learning…shift the focus from content to services. If higher education attempts to play the “commercializing education” game, we will lose before starting. Compete on our strengths, not theirs. Public education certainly has a strong future…but not within our current viewpoints of the services we provide (content) and what a learning model we use (courses) to deliver it.
6 Comments
Do not forget another advantage the UofP has- they only accept students who are working adults, not everybody that walks in the door like our community colleges.
I would not despair- there are things to be learned from U of P but they are not going to steal all of your students (maybe some). For all the glitz of their ads, etc. there are many more stories of fluff classes, questionable practices, and assembly line methodology.
They are also in this for a profit, and ultimately, as much as they may want to avoid it, that motive will show its face.
You are on target to suggest what other colleges provide, community, a sense of place, and dedicated local teachers who know their students.
By the way, I live in Phoenix and actually wokr just across the freeway from UofP headquarters, but am not affiliated at all with them
We’re probably suffering from the lack of a new model.
Colleges long ago conflated their organizational structure (how they deliver) with their teaching and research (what they deliver). As a result, calls for reorganization or restructuring are perceived as attacks on the instution and the organization’s culture.
Also, that colleges, for the most part, are non-profit enteties meant that there were particular strictures put upon them, which if nothing else created a mindset which made the for-profit business model an aversion.
Ergo: We need some new thinking–one which can filter through the wheat and chaff of what education is all about while at the same time being receptive and creative enough to build a model which as you say starts “thinking communities….”
I think the angst about UofP, though schools will not admit to this, is that there’s the persistent tension in higher education between what somewhat once called “hire and higher education.” That is education which ostensibly trains individuals to be “job-ready” by the time they graduate, or education which is somehow concerned with transmitting cultural values, teaching creative thinking, developing researching abilities, etc. (I’m not suggesting that the difference between hire and higher is necessarily that one approach is more pragmatic while the other is more theoretical, or even, for the moment, arguing for one over the other–though that’s the usual argument.)
All to say, that we’re really talking about is paradigmatic change.
I think that the problem is deeper than all of this. I think that the problem stems from the amount of control that businesses have over the curriculum in education.
It used to be that education was about teaching people how to think. Instead it seems that education is about teaching people how to be better robots.
Great post, George. Sounds like you’re asking all the right questions — it’s about adding real value — and your answers make sense too. Check out Peter Merholz’s post about experience economics this week, particularly the pyramid chart: http://www.peterme.com/archives/000200.html
What is the equivalent graph for learning, within institutions and otherwise?
from italy
thank you for:
“education is somehow concerned with transmitting cultural values, teaching creative thinking, developing researching abilities, etc.”
I agree with the comment that schools need to focus on their strengths. I am still amazed at how many schools want to try and do it all themselves in-house.
I question why they continue to buy the ever more complex, expensive and buggy CMS software (and the upgrades), buy the ever more complex and expensive hardware, make sure they have staff to manage that (though never quite enough), build out a robust 24×7 Help Desk…. AND worry about why after all that they do not have the resources to build better courses, provide the desired level of training and support for faculty and create a more effective marketing campaign. I would have thought that the severe budget crisis in many of the states and provinces in the US and Canada would have caused more people to look for alternatives.
Let me share some of the latest figures from the world of the for-profit education providers:
Corinthian Colleges reported that online learning enrollments for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2003, rose 82%, to 27,273 from 15,000 enrollments in fiscal 2002. They also just bought Canada’s CDI Education Institute.
Strayer reported in its 3rd Quarter 2003 results that fully online enrollments had increased 69% year-to-year for a total of 7,503.
ITT Education Services had 1100% growth in its online enrollments from 2002 to 2003 and has mandated that online courses form a significant part (approx 1/4) of each program they offer.
Online enrollments at Career Education grew from 1,700 to 9,300 between 2002 and 2003.
The University of Phoenix reported online enrollments increased 61% y/y to 79,400 and that revenue from online enrollments increased 56.7% to US $156.6 million.
This is just the beginning. The NCES in the US reports that online learning enrollments are growing at some 40% per year. I don’t think you have to ask who will grab a big chunk of this growth. My hunch tells me that much of that will come at the expense of traditional colleges and universities. The growth of these largely accredited online programs at the for-profit schools is based on a strong sense of focus on what they do best. Most of them outsource the technology and save their resources for course and faculty improvement and customer service to their students.
As for the traditional colleges and universities… they are still mired in their internal struggle for resources and the mindset that the IT department needs to run and/or own the eLearning platform and all its associated services. I think if you scratched below the surface of any college or university IT person they would tell you they don’t have the resources to do it right, they don’t have the time to do it right and they don’t have the focused expertise to do it right. I also bet that if you asked them how much they would appreciate not having to worry about the eLearning platform … so they could cope with all the other responsibilities being piled on them… well…..
pj