Friday, May 27, 2011

Cash Cow


from the Chronicle of Higher Education:

Why Are So Many Students Still Failing Online?
by Rob Jenkins

excerpt:

Online learning has become the third rail in American higher-education politics: Step on it and you're toast.

That's especially true at community colleges, where many leaders have embraced online courses with an almost religious fervor. And we all know why. It's not because anyone is seriously arguing that online classes are consistently better than the face-to-face versions. ...It's because colleges can produce online courses much more cheaply while charging roughly the same tuition.

In other words, at many community colleges, online classes constitute the proverbial cash cow. And if you say anything about them—other than that we should offer more and more, forever and ever, virtual worlds without end, amen—then you will be branded as a heretic, ridiculed as a neo-Luddite, and shunned.

...Years ago, when I was at another institution, and the online revolution was just gathering momentum, we were already noting that our online offerings had success rates that were much lower than in face-to-face sections. I recommended in a meeting of department heads that we consider instituting some sort of front-door controls. After all, we routinely test entering students to determine whether they're prepared for college-level math and writing courses; why not test them to see if they can handle online courses?

My suggestion was met with stony silence. Then the administrator running the meeting let me know, in no uncertain terms, that the college would never go for that idea, because it would limit online enrollment at a time when growth was needed for budget reasons.

In other words, "We don't care what happens to students at the end of the class. We just need them to sign up and stay on the roster long enough to count as enrolled."

...In the meantime, though, we need to think long and hard about which courses should be taught fully online, and which students belong in online courses. If students and their prospective employers ever begin to suspect that, in our rush to offer everything online, we have oversold and underdelivered, then it's going to be too late for us to have that discussion. Politicians will have it for us.

To read the rest, click here.
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and check this out: the recipient of a University of Phoenix MBA evaluates his online experience and how his degree is received: click here.

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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I like the idea of assessing students who want to take online coursework.

Anonymous said...

I like the idea of computer/information competency as a GE req.

Roy's obituary in LA Times and Register: "we were lucky to have you while we did"

  This ran in the Sunday December 24, 2023 edition of the Los Angeles Times and the Orange County Register : July 14, 1955 - November 20, 2...