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More students turn to online colleges for degree programs

Residential universities have historically dismissed online education, but as society becomes more high-tech, the option of pursuing an education outside a traditional university has been gaining popularity.

Online education is a $10 billion-a-year industry, up from $2.5 billion in 2004, according to the Postsecondary Education Factbook that includes information from Eduventures, an education consulting and marketing firm.

Enrollment for online courses is projected to reach about 1.7 million U.S. students this year, more than three times those enrolled in 2002. The number of online students represents nearly 10 percent of the total students enrolled in postsecondary education nationwide, according to the reference book, released in fall 2006.

Industry leader

The University of Phoenix became the nation’s first university to offer online education in 1989.

As the number of people pursuing degrees continues to grow, university officials said, they expect to see new online degree-granting facilities open.

“Online education is an effective way to provide additional academic support,” said Bill Pepicello, president of the University of Phoenix. “Some of the large land-grant universities will retool themselves to get in the online arena.”

The University of Phoenix has been successful because it has taken access to education to levels that a traditional experience can’t provide. Nearly 300,000 students are enrolled either online or at one of the 191 University of Phoenix locations in North America and Europe, university officials said.

“Online education allows a greater array of classes to be offered, because online classes aren’t bound by time and location,” Pepicello said. “In some cases, online education is an enhancer to class-size issues, because students who may not be able to physically attend class can attend class online.”

The University of Phoenix also has worked for students who have no interest in traditional universities.

“It’s more conducive for some sorts of students, primarily those who perform better with a more flexible schedule not restricted by time and place,” Pepicello said.

Those more often than not tend to be what traditional universities define as “nontraditional students,” a group many online universities consider their bread and butter.

Many tuition concerns are non-issues at universities that primarily specialize in online education because those institutions are often private. Still, tuition concerns are expected to surface at public universities as they get further involved in online education, Pepicello said, because the line between in-state and out-of-state students will get more blurry.

Unlike degree mills

Degree mills are fake universities that sell college diplomas, not an education.

Studies say that next to a home mortgage, a college degree is the second-most-expensive purchase people will make in their lifetimes. For this reason and others, selling fake degrees is big business.

As the demand for graduate degrees grows, online programs are becoming more desirable for people returning to school.

Bert Valencia is vice president for distance-learning programs at Thunderbird, the Garvin School of International Management in Glendale, Ariz.

Thunderbird’s Global MBA program requires students to spend only four weeks in a classroom, Valencia says.

Mobility factor

A complete online education is not considered sufficient for MBA programs because networking is as big a part of the MBA experience as learning.

With networking opportunities so vital for success in the business world, Thunderbird requires MBA students to spend the opening week at its Glendale campus. Eight months later, students travel to Geneva, Switzerland, for a week.

They also spend a week in Beijing and a closing week back at Thunderbird.

“If you are a traveling executive, you can’t pursue an MBA that doesn’t lock you into a particular location,” Valencia says. “Instead of losing, they’re gaining. And they take classes from the same professors we have on campus.”

These programs help improve the program’s caliber by attracting students somewhat established in their field.

The program will graduate its first class in May and will have about 100 students by the end of January. Officials expect enrollment numbers to double in the next three years.

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