MORRILTON — As forprofit school enrollment skyrockets and public universities face mounting budget constraints, the president of the University of Arkansas System is talking about expanding online distanceeducation programs at each of its campuses — potentially toward a single system-wide program.
UA System President Donald Bobbitt met with the system’s board of trustees last week to discuss marketing its network of universities and community colleges to nontraditional students — a group largely tapped by forprofit institutions — through a coordinated online-education program.
Trustees favored the idea during a retreat meeting Thursday at the Rockefeller Institute on Petit Jean Mountain, although Bobbitt said it’s too early to tell how the chancellors and faculty members will feel as the UA System prepares to plan changes within the next year.
“It has to start with the faculty,” Bobbitt said.
Bobbitt, who became UA System president in November, spent much of the retreat talking about reaching nontraditional students — older, working people who may be raising families.
He said he isn’t sure how online education might expand. It could be a systemwide plan or left up to individual campuses to decide. He said he will draft a plan by late fall on the basis of suggestions of faculty members and chancellors.
University of Arkansas campuses already offer online classes — largely in general education and courses that would normally be taught in large lecture settings. Some offer online degrees in limited subjects.
Citing the rapidly growing, multibillion-dollar, for-profit, online-school industry, Bobbitt said he doesn’t see why the UA System can’t compete for students by establishing an online school comparable to a bricksand-mortar one. With online classes, students could be from anywhere in the world.
Last year, the for-profit University of Phoenix — which holds classes all over the country and online — made $3.8 billion in revenue and nearly doubled its income from the post-9/11 GI Bill.
Eight of the top 10 recipients of post-9/11 GI Bill dollars are for-profit schools, which typically are online and have higher dropout and loan-default rates, according to statistics from the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions.
Tuition at the University of Phoenix is twice as high as instate tuition at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville, the system’s largest school, Bobbitt said.
Groans echoed among trustees Thursday upon hearing the University of Phoenix’s high enrollment statistics — several tens of thousands of students.
Bobbitt and some trustees, such as Jim von Gremp of Rogers, said they believe the success of for-profit schools — despite higher tuition and fewer career advisers — comes down to meeting the needs of its targeted market.
“One thing that Jim pointed out is that for-profit schools are really good at marketing to nontraditional students, and that’s just not something we’re good at,” Bobbitt said.
Because many nontraditional students have other obligations, online classes are easier on their schedules, he said. Online might be the only practical way for them to get a degree.
“Students you would get online are students you wouldn’t get otherwise,” Bobbitt said.
Nontraditional students are often graduate students or undergraduates looking to get degrees for the first time to enhance their employability, Bobbitt said.
“Job training has been passed off to the online schools,” von Gremp said.
So far, UA-Fayetteville offers nursing and some generalsciences degrees, in addition to numerous master’s degrees in medical and social sciences. Health, business management and some liberal-arts bachelor-degree programs are offered online at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock.
UALR had about 13,000 students last year, and about 60 percent were enrolled in one of its 15 completely online degree programs, according to UA statistics.
Other universities outside the UA System have started online programs. At Arkansas State University at Jonesboro, only 6 percent of its nearly 14,000-student enrollment was all-online for the 2011-12 academic year, although more than half of its students took at least one online course, according to university statistics. The school offers online advanced business and nursing degrees and a bachelor of science in interdisciplinary studies.
A broad online degree similar to ASU’s bachelor of science in interdisciplinary studies is something that Bobbitt foresees as the UA System explores advancing its onlineeducation program.
Bobbitt said such a degree would give credit to someone who took a broad range of science courses but not enough to get a degree in any particular science.
He said online degrees won’t necessarily mirror the physical university’s degrees.
“I don’t anticipate us duplicating all our degrees in the university system,” Bobbitt said. “You have to be selective in what you pursue.”
Bobbitt doesn’t think the physical school will disappear, either, even as some campuses in other states have closed for financial reasons.
UA-Fayetteville Chancellor G. David Gearhart said in a telephone interview Friday that he doesn’t worry about a large research university like his disappearing, but he thinks a blend of online and classroom learning is the future of face-to-face learning.
He said UA-Fayetteville already plans to beef up its online programs with more degrees.
Bobbitt said he doesn’t think online expansion will have a tremendous financial cost.
While the school won’t have to worry about the cost of facility maintenance of what could turn into unoccupied lecture halls, technology fees would balance some of that out, he said.
But Bobbitt said he thinks that if the online and face-toface education systems are run efficiently, the cost of educating students could go down and potentially affect tuition costs.
Technological investments include Blackboard Learn, an online academic communications tool that can give tests and monitor a student’s activities.
ASU also uses Blackboard Learn. For online testing, it employs a remote proctor, a 360-degree camera that observes a student who is testing and attempts to prevent cheating.
Bobbitt said he doesn’t want to pursue a remote proctor because it can breach nontesting privacy.
As for monitoring for cheating during online testing, Bobbitt said that technology is a work in progress.
But that won’t stop the pursuit of more online programs at the UA System’s campuses.
“I don’t think we can wait for all the technologies to develop,” he said.
Arkansas, Pages 15 on 07/29/2012