Online changes to higher education

Brenda Hill had a lot of reasons to pursue an online degree when she went back to school five years ago.

The Loveland resident wanted to stay at home with her then 7- and 9-year-old children. She hated the idea of spending time and gas money driving back and forth to class. And the now 50-year-old didn’t feel like she really fit in an environment with traditionally aged college students.

Her main motivation, though, was the future. She wanted to make sure she and her husband have an income as they grow older.

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“To be successful in an online degree program, you really have to be hungry for something new in life,´ said Hill, who attended the University of Arkansas right out of high school but never completed her degree. “So you work it out and fit it into your life.”

She started an online degree program at the community college level, and plans to graduate in May with a bachelor’s degree in social sciences from Colorado State University’s online Global Campus. After that Hill intends to enroll in CSU Global’s master’s program in online instruction and learning.

Enrollment in online degree programs has increased amid high unemployment, with people afraid they’ll lose their jobs or miss out on promotions because they don’t have degrees. Online programs are especially appealing to adult learners who need flexibility and convenience.

Gone are the days when online degrees were suspected of lacking the academic rigor provided in a traditional classroom. On the contrary, students and professors alike say online courses are actually harder than classroom-based courses, and instructors are finding that teaching online improves teaching in the classroom.

Catering to student needs

Enrollment in online courses has been steadily increasing over the past few years at colleges and universities in Northern Colorado.

This fall, Front Range Community College saw a big increase – 55.7 percent – in enrollment in online courses compared to last fall. Overall enrollment at all of the college’s four campuses has jumped 14.7 percent in comparison.

At Aims Community College in Greeley, online enrollment rose 9.7 percent over last fall, compared to a 14 percent increase in overall enrollment.

Front Range and Aims offer several degree programs entirely online, but neither tracks how many students actually complete those degrees entirely online. Most online students take a combination of Internet- and classroom-based courses.

CSU Global Campus – the university’s virtual branch, considered its third campus along with those in Fort Collins and Pueblo – has 1,400 students enrolled a year after it started in September 2008. About 95 percent of them are seeking online degrees, said Chelsie Fisher, director of outreach and strategic planning for CSU Global Campus.

Online enrollment has also steadily increased at the University of Northern Colorado, which created a new position last summer to add to its online offerings.

“We are concerned about the economy and people who are going to need a degree to keep their jobs or move up in their jobs,´ said Pat Book, UNC’s new assistant vice president for continuing education and academic outreach. “We want to be responsive to the needs of adult learners who are working full time and taking care of children and parents.”

Not all courses or degree programs are a good fit for an online format. Degrees in liberal arts, business, criminology and education translate well. It’s harder to offer science-based degrees, such as medicine and engineering, entirely online because of the hands-on experience needed, Fisher said.

For some universities, such as UNC and CSU, online classes are offered at the same tuition rate whether students are in-state or out-of-state, and schools are able to eliminate many of the fees tacked onto traditional classroom-based courses. That makes online degrees more affordable in many cases.

UNC’s online undergraduate programs are $275 per credit hour, with no additional fees except for the cost of textbooks. UNC online master’s programs start at $365 per credit hour.

At CSU Global, tuition is $299 per credit hour for undergraduates and $399 per credit hour at the graduate level. CSU Global students are also locked into their starting tuition rate until they finish their degree, as long as they are continuously enrolled and progressing toward the degree, Fisher said.

An online bachelor’s degree at CSU Global would cost $35,880, plus textbooks. Comparatively, an in-state student would spend about $18,000 for just one year at CSU in Fort Collins, including tuition, books, housing and other costs.

Rigor and scrutiny

Convenience is perhaps the biggest appeal for online learning. But does convenience mean poorer quality education?

In the beginning, when correspondence courses were offered through e-mail in the early 1990s, convenience translated into degrees considered sub-par by educators and employers alike.

“We’ve come a long way in 20 years,´ said Tammy Vercauteren, dean of online learning at Front Range, which offers four of its degree programs entirely online. “Online learning actually gets more scrutiny and is more rigorous.”

Colleges and universities work with individual departments to ensure online classes cover the same material and require the same work of students in classroom-based courses. Students are required to sign into online classes several times a week, participate in online discussions, complete assignments and take exams. Everything is graded, even discussions.

“There are some students who think, ‘I can sit around in my pajamas and do this. This is going to be easy,’´ said Tracey Trenam, professor of history and chair of behavioral and social sciences at Aims, who has taught both classroom and online courses for nine years. “But studies show students in online courses actually learn more than those in a traditional class.”

Many instructors find online courses more difficult to teach, Trenam said. That’s because online courses require more oversight, not less, for both student and teacher. Some discover teaching online makes them a better classroom teacher, she added.

At CSU Global Campus, instructors are required to return e-mails and phone calls from students within 24 hours. Assignments must be graded within 72 hours.

“The instructor is just as watched as the student,´ said Becky Takeda-Tinker, dean of academic affairs for CSU Global Campus. “Because the course is online, everything is open for everyone to see forever.”

Some students don’t like online courses because they learn better face-to-face. But students like Hill say online learning better fits their learning style.

“When I was in the classroom, I could never watch the board, listen to the professor and take notes at the same time,” she said. “But with everything online, I can read and reread stuff as much as I want until I get it. I can sit down in the quiet with no distractions.”

Changing education

Online learning is changing the way higher education is delivered. Educators see the popularity of online classes increasing, and even more classes becoming a hybrid of classroom-based and online learning.

Technologically savvy twenty-somethings want their education like they get everything else-customized and on-demand. At the same time, adult learners need their degrees to be more career-relevant, Fisher said.

So far, online instruction has sought to maintain the rigor and expectations of the classroom. But the day is coming soon when the classroom adapts to what’s happening online, Takeda-Tinker said.

“If you don’t start adapting to a market-driven mindset, you won’t survive,” she said. “So instead of an expert sitting on high saying, ‘This is what you must know,’ we have the student saying, ‘I know I need to know this. How can I get it?'”