Boosters of online higher education have long held out the lofty promise that it would bring down the spiraling cost of college while also widening its reach.
Experts say this is likely keeping prices for students higher than they would be if the universities didn’t have to pay such a large share of revenue. In the years since, the industry has expanded and evolved, but the arrangements between colleges and OPMs in their most traditional form — still widely in use today — look something like this: OPMs market the programs, recruit students, counsel them through the admissions process, enroll them, provide the software and tech support needed for the programs to function and even help instructors design online-friendly courses.
The challenges of this rapid expansion strategy were laid bare this summer, when Chip Paucek, chief executive officer of 2U, told investors on a call that the company would slow down its rate of launches after 2019 to “support our path to profitability.” Graduate students are an attractive market For many reasons, graduate programs make up a particularly attractive market both for these companies and for universities looking to shore up their bottom lines, said Kevin Carey, vice president for education policy and knowledge management at the think tank New America.
And though the colleges are still technically responsible for setting the prices of the programs, a recently published review of some of these contracts by Hall and her colleagues at The Century Foundation found that, in at least some cases, the OPMs do play a role. Whether working with an OPM will drive up the price of a degree program for students is one of the many factors universities consider when assessing whether to enter into an agreement with one of these companies, said Deborah Seymour, owner and principal at Higher Education Innovation Consulting, LLC.
The company also announced a partnership in August with the University of London and the London School of Economics and Political Science to offer a Bachelor of Science degree in data science and business analytics for $25,000. That’s substantially less than overseas undergraduates pay to attend the London School of Economics in person.
Trying to explain to people how Universities pay their departments, is like explaining the federal reserve and why every dollar printed into existence comes with inherent interest. It really doesn't make sense.
h0llyhart
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