Online Adult Learners Aren't A Rescue Plan

There's an exceptional article in the Chronicle this morning. It alludes to the conversations happening in cabinet meetings at tuition-dependent institutions across the country. A few of these conversations are going something like this: "We're losing traditional student enrollments. What if we launched online programs for adult learners?" Everyone nods and there's a suggestion of some faculty who've always wanted to offer that one special undergraduate program online. Someone pulls up a slide about the 36 million Americans with some college and no degree, and the decision is made before anyone asks if the market actually wants what the university is selling.

The enthusiasm in those meetings is real and the logic is seductive. Yet, as the Chronicle piece suggests, chasing headcounts isn't sustainable, even when you hedge your full-time on campus losses with part-time online enrollments. It's a hard message to hear for institutions wired to measure success with headcounts. What gets missed in the drunken fervor of online enrollment projections is the fact that the online space is no longer a wide-open market. It's now the most competitive and price-sensitive sector in higher education. WGU, SNHU, Purdue Global, and other mega universities have built the infrastructure adult learners need, including student support, and they're offering their programs at market-sensitive price points. The mistake too many universities are making now is launching online adult-learner programs built around programs they already have, not around what the market wants and isn't already getting somewhere else for less money.

Online adult learners don't fill residence halls or subsidize athletics. The fixed-cost infrastructure built for residential students doesn't shrink just because you've added online enrollments. Net revenue has to work really hard, and at institutions newish to the online market, it usually doesn't work at all. Online programs can drive positive net revenues when the university commits seriously and starts with genuine market intelligence rather than external fawning about the "power of your brand" and pretty slides with big numbers. What online programs can't do for the majority of universities is rescue them from full-time enrollment losses.