There
is still a lot of debate and conflicting research on whether online higher
education is as effective academically as in-classroom instruction. For some institutions,
however, online courses are filling a two-part void.
A
report on Education Dive noted a growing number of colleges are offering more
online courses aimed specifically at nontraditional students. Those courses
also are available to the colleges’ traditional-aged students, but the pool of
new high school graduates has started to dwindle in line with the lower
birthrate two decades ago.
The
online courses not only help to bolster enrollment numbers (and revenue) for
the schools, especially community colleges, they also open up educational
opportunities for adults with full-time jobs and family responsibilities. These
older students are often unable to fit classroom courses into their schedules.
The
nature of online instruction also better enables colleges to adapt coursework
to working adults’ needs, such as condensing courses so students can attain an
associate degree sooner. For example, Riverland Community College in Minnesota
created the FlexPace program to offer accelerated business courses, squeezing a
semester’s worth of work into six weeks.
At
Indiana Wesleyan University, the 12,000 online students outnumber the 2,700 who
go to classes on campus. “What students like most is the flexibility,” said
Lorne Oke, IWU’s executive director of the Center for Learning and Innovation.
“There’s a significant change in the way students interact with learning and
their expectations from a college.”
