The Internet has caused sudden shifts in other industries, from the way people read news to the way they buy music or plan travel. Might higher education be nearing such a jolt?
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The future of college may be virtual
Bricks-and-mortar universities should prepare for a jolt as high (and still rising) costs push students online.
By Gregory M. Lamb | Staff Writer for The Christian Science Monitor/ October 15, 2009 edition
In many ways, education hasn’t changed much since students sat at the feet of Socrates more than two millenniums ago. Learners still gather each autumn at colleges to listen to and be questioned by professors.
But the Internet has caused sudden shifts in other industries, from the way people read news to the way they buy music or plan travel. Might higher education be nearing such a jolt?
Aside from the massive dent put in their endowments by Wall Street’s woes, colleges and universities mostly have been conducting business as usual. Costs have soared compared with general inflation, but students still flock to classes.
Many have theorized that the Internet could give education a rude shock. Recently, an opinion piece by Zephyr Teachout, a law professor at Fordham University in New York who once served as an Internet organizer for presidential candidate Howard Dean, put the possibility in dramatic terms.
“Students starting school this year may be part of the last generation for which ‘going to college’ means packing up, getting a dorm room, and listening to tenured professors,” she wrote in The Washington Post. “Undergraduate education is on the verge of a radical reordering. Colleges, like newspapers, will be torn apart by new ways of sharing information enabled by the Internet.”
She’s not the first to see newspapers moving from print to online and wonder whether something similar could happen to colleges. Online newspaper readers tend to seek out individual stories, not what papers as a whole have to say. Might finding the right class online become more important than which institution was offering it? What happens if colleges or even specialized online-only education companies provide essentially the same Economics 101 course? Does geography cease to matter and do low-cost providers win out?
Some think it could happen, perhaps sooner than expected. “Three years ago nobody thought the newspaper industry was going to collapse,” says Kevin Carey, policy director of Education Sector, an independent education think tank in Washington, D.C.
Today, a college education is more than twice as expensive as it was in the early 1990s, even after adjusting for inflation.
“It’s getting worse all the time. There’s no end in sight,” Mr. Carey says.
Colleges “have set the bar pretty low for competitors” through a lack of competition, he says. At the same time, many potential students are being underserved. “We need more institutions that are good at serving working students, immigrant students, low-income students, students who are basically going to college because they want to get a credential and have a career,” he says.
Carey points to the fledgling company Straighterline.com, which offers college courses in subjects from algebra to business statistics, English composition, and accounting. Students can take as many courses as they want for $99 per month, the company’s website says. The price includes 10 hours each month of one-on-one live support and a course adviser. Passing courses results in “real college credit” from one of several colleges affiliated with the program.
About 30 percent of the undergraduate credits given each year at US colleges and universities derive from only 20 or 30 introductory classes. It seems logical, then, that these could be turned into “commodities” sold at the lowest price online.
“Econ 101 for $99 is online, today. 201 and 301 will come,” Carey writes in an essay, “College for $99 a Month,” in Washington Monthly. “The Internet doesn’t treat middlemen kindly.” He describes an unemployed woman in Chicago who was able to complete four college courses for less than $200 on Straighterline.com. The same courses would have cost $2,700 at a local university.
Of course, colleges and universities have discovered online learning themselves. They already offer thousands of online courses to their registered students. According to one recent survey, nearly
4 million college students, more than 20 percent of all students, have taken at least one online course.
But colleges don’t generally offer a lower price for online courses. The reason is that the courses actually take more work to prepare and teach than similar classroom courses, says Janet Poley, president of the American Distance Education Consortium in Lincoln, Neb. Members of the consortium, made up of public universities and community colleges, find that they often must provide extra resources to faculty who are preparing to teach online for the first time, such as help from a graduate assistant or a lighter teaching load, she says. [Editor’s note: The original version mischaracterized the role of the consortium.]
Online learning at these institutions“has been growing very fast,” Dr. Poley says. Students appreciate the flexibility to be able to take courses whenever they want, allowing them to keep their jobs or avoid paying baby sitters or commuting to campus as often.
What’s holding back more online courses, she says, is the lack of good broadband Internet options in some places, especially rural areas.
What may be evolving, Poley says, is a “home institution model,” in which students take introductory courses online but come on campus for work in their major field and for graduate study.
“I don’t really care whether there are students on campus or not,” she says. But “I think there will still be folks who like to be in a community with others while they are learning.” Some students enjoy athletics and other on-campus activities, she says. “I don’t think people are ready to give that up.”
Online courses, the latest form of distance learning, have had a reputation for being of lower quality than on-campus work, Carey says – something advertised in the back pages of a magazine. But that may be out of date.
Online education is continually improving, he says. “It’s better now than it was 10 years ago.”
A study of 12 years of online teaching by SRI International on behalf of the US Department of Education concluded earlier this year that “On average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.”
What’s more, this wasn’t true only of lower-level courses. “Online learning appeared to be an effective option for both undergraduates … and for graduate students and professionals … in a wide range of academic and professional studies,” the study said.
The Obama administration has talked in general terms about online education as part of a grand plan to give the US the highest proportion of college-educated citizens in the world by 2020. The plan, when announced next year, could include funds to develop more online course materials and make them freely available.
If other online education start-ups like Straighterline.com do appear, they won’t be looking for “18-year-olds from suburban high schools who want to go to Harvard,” Carey says. Elite schools will always offer other reasons to attend, such as making social connections. “Exclusivity never goes out of style,” he says.
Professor Teachout is reminded of the 19th century, when wealthy Americans sent their children off to Europe to absorb its cultural treasures on a so-called Grand Tour. “I can imagine the off-line, brick-and-mortar, elegant, beautiful MIT experience becoming the Grand Tour” of tomorrow, she says in an interview.
Reaction to her article has been strong and varied. Some, including her father, also a law professor, have said, “This is horrible. This is the end of the world,” she says. Those she calls “techno-Utopians” have said, “This is fantastic!”
An online learning experience for the self-motivated, organized person could be “extraordinary,” she says. And we’ve only scratched the surface. “The totally free online university that is stitched together from MIT-quality professors is going to happen very soon.”
Others remain skeptical.
“I do question whether things are really as dire as she says, and whether we’re moving toward a model where the online [courses] will almost completely displace the classroom,” says Dan Colman, associate dean and director of continuing studies at Stanford University in California. He also has founded openculture.com, a website that points visitors to free educational courses online.
“I think there could be a day when a lot … could be done online, but I don’t think it’s in 20 years. I think it’s further out.”
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Comments
2. George | 10.16.09
why waste time going to a school when you can bring the school to your study room
3. Ann | 10.16.09
We have identified styles of learning, and not everyone learns best by lecture. I’m looking forward to the day when a class advertisement tells you more than the subject. It should tell you whether material is presented 100% orally, or 50% from the book, or even 20% independent research. A student ought to know before paying for a class whether it includes group projects, papers, tests, class presentations or whether all the material is in the book. It should say whether graduates determined the class to be helpful, and for which majors or other goals. The days of lecture-only classes that focus on a professor’s whims are dwindling as other choices grow.
4. TL Winslow | 10.16.09
It would be great if the Internet Age brought universal virtually education to all. Too bad, the current school system is a featherbedded union shop with lobbyists and great political power, and they will no doubt become Luddites who try to keep their power, wealth, perks, privileges and pensions no matter how much it hurts the people.
It would be funny if some underdeveloped country such as Mexico could show the way by giving each student a free cheap Internet terminal and tie aid to their parents to their educational performance, keeping only enough teachers and buildings to set up online curricula and proctor tests, plus hold some socializing and gymnastic and sports functions. Bonuses, prizes and job training offers can also be given to students to induce them to work at their educations rather than play or get in trouble, the money they get being earned a lot more than the teachers salaries are now.
Ditto with Bill Gates and his big food aid program in Africa.
5. Linda Zimring | 10.16.09
This looks like the credit given by the colleges is only for those colleges and is not necessarily good anywhere else. If that is the case, this information is misleading.
6. L. Savage | 10.16.09
There are many reasons for someone to attend a class online. However, I have done both and I still prefer the classroom experience to online. I absorb much more information in a classroom discussion than I would sitting at home tied into a conference line/video feed.
I’m in a class right now that has both an online and a traditional component. There are always issues with someone having technical difficulty or forgetting to mute their microphone. Being at home would certainly be more comfortable, but if you are there to learn a traditional setup is the best.
7. Bren | 10.16.09
I LOVE online learning, but it can’t replace all educational experiences. I’ve taken many online courses, traditional classroom courses, and hybrids that combine both. Meeting face-to-face and being on a campus is a far richer and more interactive experience than online.
Now, given a choice of an online course or a gigantic “auditorium” classroom in which the professor just lectures, I would absolutely prefer online. However, smaller classes–especially seminars–are a thousand times better in person. And it’s amazing how much you learn from discussions with other students while living, or at least hanging out for hours, on campus.
8. Ron | 10.16.09
For me, education is the interaction with the professor and the class, not the interaction with the material. “Online courses” has about the same effect as reading through a good library–a positive thing to be sure, but not really education.
9. InF | 10.16.09
As a current grad student, I am not sure how I feel about this. The author brought up the point about no one predicted the newspaper will go out of style in three years, however, reading the newspaper is not a group activity. Though one could argue that studying is not a group activity either, but I would beg to differ. Many classes in undergrad requires some sort of collaboration, whether it is on homework or cramming for exams, or just general understanding of a subject matter. Much is to be gained for many to study with their fellow peers. Even in graduate school, where much computational research can be done at home, there is much room for collaboration. I hear about fellow grad students complain about people who only show up to the lab when they need some help from someone. Which leads one to think what would the person in lab do if he/she needed some help? I’m not sure if I’m just being short sighted with the advent of Google Wave and such. I guess in short, I feel like much can be done at home, but there is something to be said about human interactions.
10. Betty | 10.16.09
There is more to getting an education than just the academics. A major part of the college experience is living with one’s peers, learning how to take care of oneself and make one’s own decisions, and just the fun of the social aspects of communal living. I’m still in touch with friends I made in college in the early 1960’s. Yes, we can do everything online - but at the sacrifice of important life experiences.
11. William Brand | 10.17.09
Online education has problems in 2 areas. The first is cheating on tests. Too many students may hire someone to take the course for them!!. They may need to come in and take a proctored exam to get credit. Most lecture courses can however go online in fields such a history, math etc. Lab courses will have problems. Just try to take an organic chemistry lab on line. You don’t have the equipment in your home. They may however try using virtual worlds for labs. Its safer to deal with virtual ebola virus than the real stuff. What happens however when a student who has only worked with a dangerous chemical on line finds himself in the real world on his job. He may not know how to light the bunsen burner!! Disecting a virtual corpse does not prepare a doctor to cut into a real person.
12. Web | 10.17.09
I’ve been wondering for years what universities like my own (Harvard) will do with all those buildings they are so intent on constructing, when they stand empty a few years down the road. Higher ed is in trouble because it is over-sold, over-priced, under-designed, and is frequently not worth the price tag. $200,000+ is a LOT of money for a few months of campus collegiality. If you measure it by the instructional hour, it’s a gyp. And the lecture by the learned don is an ancient mode of communication so inefficient as to be nearly useless today.
13. Lisa | 10.17.09
It is a new way, like other new things burst out,that need be accepted. Of course, it may be a good way.
15. RichP | 10.19.09
It has been obvious for many years that teaching is tremendously redundant, and that a standard series of lectures and homework sets could be developed and recorded to cover 2/3 of the college undergraduate curriculum, and even more of the HS one. That leaves testing and labs. The internet doesn’t even have all that much to do with it, except for making distributing the material even cheaper.
There was a time when autodidacts played a major role in the world’s leading edge of knowledge work. How much did Einstein learn in school compared to what he developed on his own? Anyone qualified to be a professor is deemed capable of learning on their own; why shouldn’t people be taught to do this at a much younger age? Certainly, some guidance is needed, but the traditional system is extremely wasteful and expensive.
16. Laura | 10.19.09
I don’t think online learning is the future of education; it is the present. So many schools are expanding and have great programs catering to people in all phases and stages of life. It is exciting to think of the possibilities that have opened up for so many people because of online learning!
17. Barry Weintraub | 10.20.09
There are many elementary school subjects where memorizing some basic material builds a foundation for learning. For example, I’ve never seen anyone do well in math without first learning the times table. On line learning is a very good way to economically teach kids some basic subjects as well as provide quality teaching material for advanced subjects.
So if you ask the newspaper why you should pay for day old news, then ask the school why you should pay them for the privilege of sitting in the past?
18. Phil | 10.20.09
Online education will take off when recruiting comes to those who have online credentials.
19. Martin | 10.20.09
In my experience, the single most influential contribution to student learning is the student’s own motivation to learn. Consequently, unless online courses are able to stimulate students’ motivations in a manner that leads to subject proficiencies similar to traditional programs, online courses will not become widely popular.
On the other hand, online courses which improve student subject proficiencies over their tradition counterparts will become popular. Imagine, for instance, a single online course that is adaptive in the sense that the course material can be presented according to the student’s best learning style (visual, auditory, or kinesthetic), rather than the instructor’s favored teaching style. Or imagine an online course developed by a team of instructors, each focused on creating dynamic presentations of subtopics. Or yet again, what about online courses taught by the best teachers in the nation (however “best” is defined).
20. distance student | 10.21.09
Reading through these comments, I see that there are many misconceptions about studying online. I’ve studied online for some years now, and my previous degree was on-campus. I have some responses to the above, based on my own experience:
1) I cannot cheat on an exam, because I need to attend my exams in a physical location, with an invigilator, who checks my student ID and other photographic ID. The exams form such a significant portion of the overall mark in a subject, that even if someone else wrote the remainder of it, I’d fair poorly if I couldn’t get a good result at an exam.
2) WRT Life Experience: Well, I’ve been on campus previously, and I see no great worth in the time lost drinking at bars or playing pool, etc. I can do without these. More to the point, without the distraction of on-campus nonsense, my focus on study is better. I continue to have lively online interactions with my peers. If anything, the emphasis on text communication intensifies our discussions. I’ve made lasting friendships online, with people from around the world. Don’t knock it until you try it.
3) Wherever does one get the idea that a degree earned online is not recognised by other providers? This is not true. I’ve even transferred credit between online universities without trouble. And to those who think that recruiters are not targeting online students - think again. At my university and numerous others, we have careers departments catering to both on and off campus students. Advertisements for jobs, internships and professional development seminars are all available to students online.
4) Distance education is not NEW. People living in remote regions have relied upon it for generations. Whether they were taking their classes by radio, mail or internet is not important. This is not a new mode of study. But it is a challenging one. It requires much more self-discipline than on-campus study.
And the other matter: The reason I study online is because I have family and work to consider. I’m immersed in ‘real life experience’ right where I am, I don’t need any more of it! People serving in defence forces often study by distance; people with chronic health issues or disabilities often study by distance, people living in far flung places often study by distance. It’s fantastic that flexible learning options like this are available.
21. Michelle | 10.22.09
While college’s future may be virtual, the cost does not seem to come down. Having just finished my master’s degree the cost of in class room versus virtual is the same. There is no discount for being virtual, even though it saves the school money because less resources are being used.
I do think most colleges will have virtual classes with in the next few years, but I do not see them cutting the costs of those classes for the student.
22. LaTanya | 10.23.09
I do believe that online education has offered educational institutions another option. It has allowed people access to a college education, that might have otherwise been inaccessible. The traditional classroom will remain for sometime. The adult learner with no college experience will be drawn to the classroom because of familiarity. It is possible, that the next generation will move to a e-community because they have been exposed to this learning through secondary education.
23. online prof. | 10.23.09
I’ve taught in the classroom and now online. With online courses, I get all the hard parts of the job (preparation, grading), without the enjoyable parts: personal interaction with students and colleagues. The universities save a pile of money, since they don’t have to heat classrooms, etc.; some of those costs are transferred to me when I work at home. This change to online teaching may be inevitable, but it isn’t always pleasant or beneficial for university employees.
24. Exed | 10.24.09
I am a college student and online learning would NOT be for me. The motivation and everything isn’t there. Yes this appeals to maybe 20 percent of people but that is probably all that it is going to appeal to. If we sit behind computers 24/7 then are social interaction will fail. To top it off you can’t exactly complete biology labs and things of the like online. You have to go in for those certain kinds of things. The reason why this appeals to so much is cause of laziness. I mean your an online ONLY person. You still sleep in till 1 or 2 in the afternoon, do your work at the last minute. You skip half of it cause you found it online that somebody has already done. You pass. Now real world comes, you have a break down from human interaction, and your late everyday cause you spent 4 years sleeping in till 2 in the afternoon. I can see where this is a plus but these numbers are pure crap. On a side note the IT courses some could be done online if it be coding and such but really an instructor is needed to get the experience. I asked a few friends about this and their reactions are similar. Online would be both bogus and boring. This appeals more to the mom’s and dad’s who got full time jobs and kids versus those who can’t wait for their high school graduating days. ‘Nuff said.
25. Dr. Gary | 10.25.09
“Live” professors are the spokesmodels of learning. Confections. Edu-tainers.
27. bill stout | 11.15.09
Online learning allows plenty of interaction with profs and other students. It is done by forums and email for one-to-one communication. Discussions, with hyperlinks to support or enhance the topic work great.
Online has both disadvantages and advantages.
Online is much more convenient for people who work, don’t live near a campus, are handicapped, or have kids to supervise. Work can be done at the student’s convenience, including watching videos and video lectures.
Lab classes can’t be done via the net, so some type of of campus classes are still needed for some subjects. Ditto for classes such as nursing, that require practice taking blood pressure or placing IVs.
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1. M. Sharon | 10.15.09
To me online education is a moot point. A professor friend of mine now teaches exclusively online for three different universities. And my husband’s son is getting his degree online. The high, & increasingly expensive, college fees will drive the use of online degrees faster than most people realize.
This year we canceled our land line & use only cell phones and canceled the newspaper & get our news online. Just as the article pointed out - just a short three years ago no one would have predicted the demise of newspapers!