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eLearning: Are We Making Money?
7/21/2005
Maybe. But in online ed, what do we mean by "making money?"
NOT LONG AGO, a highly publicized report suggested that the eLearning boom had gone bust. The report, Thwarted Innovation: What Happened to e-Learning and Why (Zemsky and Massey, University of Pennsylvania, 2004 (www.irhe.upenn.edu/WeatherStation.html), took a hard stance. Another finding suggested that the “bust” was possibly a natural milestone in the process of innovation, and was only a bust due to the overly rigid and unimaginative applications of the online technologies. The study predicted that the next boom would happen when online programs used “flexible combinations” of people, facilities, and technology to meet learner-centered career and lifestyle goals. This is happening now.
The next wave of the eLearning innovation is in progress and, according to some, is succeeding in paying its own way. Programs portending the potential for a boom in online learning within traditional institutions of higher learning are those at Boston University (butrain.bu.edu/cpe), Penn State University (www.worldcampus.psu.edu), the University of Florida (www.doce.ufl.edu), the University of Illinois (www.online.uillinois.edu), and the University of Massachusetts (www.umassonline.net). Collectively, these institutions offer over 100 online undergraduate and graduate degrees, certificates, and programs in fields as diverse as financial planning, homeland security, pharmacology, forensic toxicology, business, and philosophy.
These institutions are using a variety of models to design and deliver their programs. The models reveal differences in how schools fund their initial programs, in their strategies for designing and developing programs, and in the processes for branding and marketing them.
Interviews with the leaders of the programs revealed many similar characteristics, as well. For example, each of these online programs is administered as a cost center within its institution. When asked whether the Penn State World Campus was making money, Associate VP for Outreach Gary Miller shared that the university’s goal for the World Campus is to “recover the cost of delivering any program and, where possible, to develop a positive cash flow.” Positive cash flow (when it happens) is used to support courses that don’t cover costs, to provide funds for innovation and updating of programs, and to share revenue with the sponsoring academic units. This, too, is the message from the other institutions; each is thriving with steadily increasing enrollment and revenues. Yet, the characteristics of these successful online programs echo those of any successful economic endeavor.
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