Universities should support learning through continuing education units
By Dr. Paul Welty
Many universities seek to enhance their programs through online learning. Universities face a financial challenge as they seek to deliver online courses alongside traditional on-campus classes. A common approach is to use an external partner, specifically an Online Program Manager. But there is already an internal partner that’s frequently overlooked. Continuing education units can support schools as they meet new demands to offer online learning opportunities.
A common solution for schools to add online courses has been to deliver courses through an Online Program Manager. Many of these partners offered their services for free in exchange for a percentage of online tuition. That fee could be as high as 50-80 percent of course revenue. But when considering low online enrollments and limited available courses at the time, universities saw these partnerships as a deal. It provided students with new options, added some tuition revenue, and did not demand extra capacity and infrastructure investment.
Today, everything has changed. Online learning is no longer a rare exception in higher education. In fact, it’s becoming a core component, with waves of would-be on-campus students opting for a mix of online and in-person courses instead. At the same time, universities must balance the heavy financial burdens to maintain their campuses while also supporting alternative online courses to meet demand. Despite this shift in university needs, online learning contractors have continued to use the same business model they did from the start.
Research from the Education Department's National Center for Education Statistics shows a recent 93 percent increase in what the agency describes as "distance education courses.” Under such circumstances, the takeaway for higher education institutions is that managing online education in-house is the best way to scale online education offerings and retain the investment. Online education is here to stay.
Typically, the units with the most experience in online learning are the continuing and professional education units. Their expertise gives schools a new option. Schools can turn to the internal continuing education department which is already geared up to deliver online content to serve as the ideal online program manager. Continuing education departments are a hidden university asset poised for online course delivery.
Redirecting ownership of online courses to continuing education departments is an efficient way for schools to maintain control of their online course offerings and to safeguard revenues as online enrollments begin to rival on-campus enrollments. Few universities could survive if they had to part with 50-80 percent of all tuition like the previous payment model for online course offerings. That model was tolerable, even useful, for the rare one-off online course; it is not tenable with the rise in student demand.
And apart from protecting traditional revenues, managing online courses in-house allows universities to take a strategic and balanced approach to online education.
BIO: As Vice Provost for Emory Academic Innovation and Interim Director of the Emory Continuing Education (ECE) program, Paul Welty brings more than 20 years, experience in technology and marketing, having built solutions, teams, and organizations that address business problems with modern technology at companies such as North Highland, Sparks Grove, Synaxis, and the Merge Agency.