Staying connected: getting retention right is high priority for online degree programs - Special report: recruitment & retention

Black Issues in Higher Education, Oct 24, 2002 by Ronald Roach

With a busy career and an active church life, Bonita Harris has gained considerable experience in balancing work and academic studies. Over the years, the Charlotte, N.C., resident has accumulated college classroom credits at three different institutions while having to work full time. When Harris decided last spring to complete a college degree to enhance her career prospects with her employer, the IBM Corp., she chose an online degree program in computer networking offered by Strayer University, a for-profit higher education institution based in Arlington, Va.

"This is my first experience with online education, and so far it's been great," she says, noting that she gets the individual attention of both an academic adviser and a financial aid adviser to help her prepare for enrollment each quarter.

It's estimated that the online distance-learning market is growing 40 percent annually with approximately 350,000 students, or 2 percent of total U.S. higher education enrollments, and generating $1.75 billion annually, according to the Boston-based research firm Eduventures. Research on retention is scarce mainly because of the newness of online education, but individual schools and organizations are reporting that their online programs have as high or higher rates of retention as their traditional classroom offerings.

However, Dr. Steven Jackson, chair of the political science department at the Indiana University of Pennsylvania and online education expert, says the conventional wisdom is that online courses and degree programs generally have higher dropout rates than that of traditional higher education classroom settings.

"There just hasn't been much research done to determine how online retention rates really compare to those from traditional classroom-based environments," Jackson says.

Sean Gallagher, an analyst with Eduventures, says the online distance-learning market is defined heavily by its focus on non-traditional working adult students, such as Harris, who are looking for consumer-friendly degree programs. He says students flock to the online programs because they offer a consumer-oriented approach that places a high priority on student retention.

"The model is one based on flexibility and convenience," Gallagher says of the successful online education providers.

Oakleigh Thorne, chief executive officer of the Denver-based eCollege company, a major provider of online education services, agrees that the research on online retention in comparison to traditional classroom retention is inconclusive. However, he adds that among the 260 institutions that eCollege serves, the company has found a 90 percent online retention rate compared to a 75 percent traditional classroom rate among the sampled clients. Thorne says eCollege services nearly 220,000 enrollments annually among its 260 clients.

FINDING THE RIGHT INGREDIENTS FOR RETENTION

During the 1990s, American higher education officials had grandiose visions for online education. Among the rosy scenarios attributed to the promises of online education would be the alleviation of projected overcrowding on public institution campuses, elite schools would lead a global continuing education boom, and big profits would accrue to any institution that got into the online distance-learning market.

What actually happened was online distance education took flight in institutions that had the most pragmatic visions for its use. While a number of high-profile online distance-learning ventures, including those of some Ivy League schools, flopped in recent years, online education has boomed at the for-profit enterprises, community colleges, and many state schools that have long served geographically-dispersed populations.

Academic officials had dreams that online education would make it unnecessary for state university systems to spend millions of dollars constructing new campus facilities to accommodate the student population boom expected this decade. It was widely believed that hundreds of thousands of teenage first-time undergraduates would attain their education via the Internet, thus leading to a major transformation of the college experience for the traditional 18- to 25-year-old student population.

While the Internet has allowed campuses to enhance traditional classroom instruction with Web-based content and course materials, the virtual colleges for first-time undergraduates, embodied in the plans of the California Virtual University and other similar efforts, have failed to live up to original expectations. Instead, community colleges, four-year state colleges and state-run educational consortiums have developed undergraduate online general education and specialized undergraduate online degree programs that have largely attracted working adult students. Nevertheless, IUP's Jackson estimates that as many as half the students in online courses are from the traditional 18- to 25-year-old student cohort who normally take campus-based courses. He says the traditional students enroll in the online courses to take advantage of the flexibility and the usable academic credits they offer.