Page 244 - Crisis in Higher Education

Redesigning Curriculum and Pedagogy • 215

3. Real and sustainable growth: After the plunge, many people were
skeptical of online commerce or e-commerce, but there was real
value, and over the next few years it slowly recovered and ultimately
gained steam and grew rapidly. Amazon’s stock price reflects this
recovery, topping $800 per share in late 2016. 14

Online learning is no longer ignored as it has emerged as an important
tool for higher education. Online learning has grown rapidly, especially
in private, for-profit universities that find this technology easier to imple-
ment, less costly, and more useful for their customers. As evidence of
this growth, consider that from 1997 until 2010, the number of private,
for-profit institutions has grown from about 600 to nearly 1,200, while
the number of public and private, not-for-profit institutions is virtu-
15
ally unchanged. Growth of for-profit universities has been fueled, in
part, by demand for online learning, but as described in Chapter 9, these
universities have performed poorly with low graduation rates and long
completion times. The perception of many is that their overall quality
must improve. 16
Online learning must be more than a sprinkling or even an inunda-
tion of MOOCs or other online courses. Up to now, public universities
as well as private, not-for-profit universities offer some online courses
and may have a few programs that are 100% online. But they do not
appear to have an overarching plan for implementing online learn-
ing to improve quality, enhance student access, and lower costs. They
select courses for online delivery because a certain faculty member is
interested in developing the course. The outcome is an online course
here and an online course there, rather than an entire online degree
program. To illustrate the haphazard nature of online learning and the
attitude of students, it is not uncommon for students who are living on
campus to enroll in online courses for reasons that have nothing to do
with easier access.

10.2.2.3 Implementing Online Learning
For online learning to succeed, universities must offer well-designed
degree programs with exceptional quality, high performance standards,
and impeccable security. The programs should be easy to access and cost
less. Private, for-profit universities have dropped the ball with respect
to online learning, opening a window of opportunity for public and