The future isn’t so bright for other online universities

Colorado State University-Global Campus launched roughly a year after University of Illinois-Global Campus. Today, the future of the U of I’s Global Campus is uncertain. Jodi Cohen, reporter for the Chicago Tribune, covered the story on April 5th.

By the end of June, U of I will have more than $15 million invested in their online program.  They have a total of 360 students, with a third of them in non-degree classes. The institution is unsure how they will proceed with Global Campus and are considering the option to it shut down.

One area of grave concern has been the development of their curriculum. The article states: “… every online program created by Global Campus has had to work with an existing academic department and university faculty and Global Campus officials have clashed over everything from course lengths to who would own the teaching materials. As a result, few courses have been developed. The current offerings include programs in business, nursing and education.”

U of I-Global Campus predicts that enrollment will rise to 450 for the May term and up to 700 for the September term.  But will that be enough to keep their doors open? Time will tell.

Fortunately, CSU-Global Campus has a much different story to tell. The timing from the first funding to becoming a fully functional public online university was just 11 months. Total enrollment is 700 students (and growing daily) after just 7 months since launch. The growth is forecasted to continue at a steady pace, which is in line with overall growth in higher education. The Tribune reported that according to a fall report by the Sloan Consortium, a group that tracks online education, 3.9 million students took at least one online college course in fall 2007, up 12.9 percent from the prior year.

The future appears to be bright for CSU-Global Campus.  Even more exciting is the fact that the first graduates will be this August.

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