Private colleges squeeze out middle-class
High-priced private colleges are “feeling the heat but not ready to compete,” writes Tom VanderArk in the Huffington Post. Middle-class parents won’t to pay $50,000 a year for a second- or third-tier college when they can turn to do-it-yourself learning alternatives, which are improving all the time.
Vander Ark predicts higher education will become “a blend of online and onsite learning and a blend of multiple providers.” School will become “a web of cloud-based applications delivered to multiple devices with ancillary physical services.” Only the best bricks-and-mortar colleges and universities will survive.
Western Governors University, an online collaborative, pioneered using competencies rather than seat time in 1995. “WGU was ahead of its time, but individual progress models will soon be common in K-12 and will eventually infiltrate higher education as online learning continues to grow.”
While the U.S. has some excellent, highly selective colleges and universities, we’ve been coasting, Vander Ark writes.
Most students pay too much, get too little, and half drop out. For students being priced out of the market, there are a growing number of cheap or free alternatives and many are personal digital learning options.
Students also can cut college costs by earning credits in high school through AP courses and dual enrollment in community colleges.
After high school, a student can attend a community college for about $2,400 per year — about one third of a public four year and about one tenth the cost of a private four year university. The bad news is that a small minority graduate and go on to a four year degree. After spending the summer attacking private colleges (that on average have higher two-year completion rates), it was good to see the White House focus on the terrible completion rate of community colleges in a summit hosted by Dr. Jill Biden.
New online colleges offer “a freshman year for about $1000 plus textbooks,” but low-cost college credits aren’t always transferable. Private colleges don’t want to collect less tuition. State universities may not take transfer credits either.
“If you run a college and don’t have a ‘better and cheaper’ agenda, you’re going out of business,” VanderArk concludes.
Arizona may expand online education to cut college costs, reports The College Puzzle.
Family Tree is drawn by my friend and former colleague, Signe Wilkinson.
Hybrid classes engage students
Hybrid classes — a blend of online and face-to-face learning — can work well for community college students, writes Linda Thor in Community College Times. Thor draws on experiences at Rio Salado College, a virtual college in Arizona for working adults, and the Foothill-De Anza Community College District in California’s Silicon Valley, where she serves as chancellor.
A Center for Community College Student Engagement survey found that students who received blended instruction reported being more engaged than those who took all-online classes, Thor writes.
By shifting some attendance off campus, hybrid classes allow colleges to serve more students with the same facilities.
Students experience the benefits of online learning, including “convenience, flexibility, and increased opportunity for reflection and self-directed learning” without giving up on “face-to-face contact with an instructor and social interaction with other students.”
Faculty members report that well-structured hybrid courses can stimulate exciting levels of student engagement and participation in ways similar to fully online courses. Online, no one can sit silently in the back of the class. The online medium offers opportunities to engage students in innovative ways that are not as feasible or effective on campus.
A well-designed hybrid class can help instructors make the most of their classroom time by enabling electronic completion of such tasks as exchanging tests, papers, and other documents; dispensing information about grades; and critiquing student work. Students also can easily share their work with each other.
Mike Murphy, a Foothill computer science instructor, uses Web video- and audio-conferencing software applications for his Cisco networking class. Students can attend his class in person or virtually. That enables working students to review material they missed or participate in class live while traveling.
Hybrid courses can increase demand on campus computer labs and the technology infrastructure. Faculty and students may need more tech support.
Teaching a hybrid course for the first time requires faculty to climb a steep learning curve for which they need adequate time, resources, and support. They need the computer equipment, software, course development time, training, and instructional design services necessary to develop, maintain, and manage the delivery of high-quality instruction.
Developing effective hybrid courses is just as difficult as developing fully online courses, Thor writes. Ultimately, the most important factor is the skill of the instructor.
