Saving public universities — from convergemag.com by Jessica B. Mulholland
As university budgets shrink, governors are searching for ways to make the remaining education money more effective, Thomasian said. “One of those ways to make it effective is for higher education to start using a lot more online learning.”
Debates about the rigor of online versus traditional degrees abound, but the truth is that the recession is straining traditional public universities, tuitions are continuously rising and students are being turned away from already-overcrowded classrooms. So does online education offer a viable alternative for delivering higher education, career retraining and lifelong learning?
Ray Scheppach, executive director of the National Governors Association, thinks so. “I really believe that higher education has to move online,” he said at the National Association of State Chief Information Officers midyear meeting in Baltimore. “Private universities have done it; government will have to follow along.”
…
A Broken Model?
Ultimately the higher education system as we know it is in jeopardy, and many contend that the model is already broken.
“Particularly for the public institutions,” Breneman said, “if you think their role and purpose is to serve the public in a broad way and to be affordable and accessible, I think we are running a risk of closing out opportunities to a substantial part of the youth population if we aren’t careful. We’re shifting the cost from the general taxpayer, which is what it has historically been, over to the families.”