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(Come tomorrow) May I be bolder than today?
162 Plays20 days ago
Welcome back to another episode of "Online Education Across the Atlantic". In today's episode, our hosts dive into the evolving state of online education in both the US and the UK. As they navigate through recent data, they compare enrollment trends, challenges, and strategic investments that shape the future of online learning. The discussion delves into how the sectors have grown post-COVID, the stability of datasets, and the increasing competitiveness in the online education market.
Phil and Morgan share perspectives on the US market, highlighting how legacy investments have paid off for certain institutions, while Neil provides a UK viewpoint, discussing the impact of financial constraints and the potential for growth. They explore the potential influence of changing administrations on educational policies and the anticipated innovations in international online education.
Join us as we unpack these trends and look ahead to what 2025 holds for online learning.
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Transcript
Podcast Setup and Aesthetic
00:00:10
Speaker
Hello and welcome back to online education across the Atlantic. And after we've started offering the video podcast option for this on YouTube, ah well, we're all trying to adjust to the video angle of this. So you might notice Morgan is now down in the basement, although we're both noticing it's quite a nice office that that your spouse has down there.
00:00:35
Speaker
so This is the new you. And then I've basically just rotated my view. So I think it's standard. You got to have a bookshelf to look good in a podcast office setting. So that's what I'm going with. But it's great to see you guys. Yeah, it seems it's been a long time over the over the holidays and everything else. so But yeah, good to be back. Yeah, I think it's been a month since since we recorded the second episode.
00:01:05
Speaker
Wow Wow, yeah, that's that's that's quite a while.
UK Online Education Trends
00:01:09
Speaker
I feel like i'm not quite ready to start 2025 yet, but we're kind of 13 days in so There we go yeah Yeah, I think you've started it whether you want to or not. I know I know I know Well, today, ah it turns out that, Neil, you you did a ah of post recently looking at the state of UK online education, sort of, where are we? And then at the same time, we have new data in the US on enrollments broken down by distance education from iPads.
00:01:44
Speaker
And actually, you're in the middle of several posts on that topic. And it seemed like a good opportunity to basically just say, what is the state of online education, particularly in the UK and US? And what are you know basically comparisons and looking at trend yeah trends that we're seeing?
00:02:05
Speaker
um So that's what we wanted to get into today.
Data Challenges in UK Education
00:02:09
Speaker
To get started, however, without jumping in, to look at both sides, I have to say I think we have a much brighter picture over here in the US from what I'm reading than than what we're seeing in the UK. So I feel pretty good about that, at least for this year.
00:02:26
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I suppose there's kind of brighter picture in terms of um the numbers, but I guess brighter picture in terms of the stability of the data. I think, to be honest, that my reflections on 2024 in terms of the the data that we get from from ESA for online learning is it's just it's been a bit of a disaster, to be honest.
00:02:48
Speaker
um You know, we had a really late release. We had a release with errors in there. So one, for example, one institution, I think, had registered all of their students as being online students, when in fact they don't have an online program at all.
00:03:05
Speaker
As far as I'm aware in the institution and and because of the way that these things are reported that's not um Removed from the data, but it's just I know is put on there um That that's happened um Then when with the release did come out um It it it was obviously it was the data was recorded on a different basis. So it's not comparable year-on-year for starters So that that's also, you know, not not ideal This is starting to sound like data nightmare, every possible thing that could go wrong. It is. It is. It was an online learning in UK higher education, Anas Hariblis, 2024, I think. Does that actually cause any of the horrible times higher education online rankings? Maybe they just have really bad data to get started. Maybe that's why we weren't a fan of that. Maybe I'm not sure about that. I think they didn't. That was all their own work. But then when the figures were released, obviously not comparable year on year, but it showed an increase in the number of undergraduates.
00:04:15
Speaker
And post-quadgets online students and I should say that this what i'm referring to here is uk Domestic students are international and uk online are reported differently. Um, but then a couple of months later They revised it and so the numbers were revised down So you kind of have this just i'm slightly exasperated by the whole thing now and I don't really know what to say in it in a way because For starters the year-on-year comparison isn't possible this year, but then you had a an increase and then a decrease and I I feel so worn down by those shenanigans that I don't really know what what to say. I think it
00:05:02
Speaker
I think the only thing I can say is it's not pointing to this massive increase in demand for online But I don't think it's showing a huge decline and you know as you know The stories, you know the the the raw kind of main figure of data kind of tells you something.
US Education Data Stability
00:05:22
Speaker
But there's so many stories you know within the data when you when you sort of start to look at institutions.
00:05:29
Speaker
um Obviously, kind of kind of to analyze at that level takes quite a lot of time. But you know if you really want to kind of know what's happening, you have to kind of really delve down into the deep the detail. And these figures are indicative. so I would defer. I have to admit, and we'll get to the details on the US. I want to go through the UK a little bit first. But I will say on the data side, you know the biggest challenges we're doing the analysis and writing these posts is here you have the iPad's fall enrollment data.
00:06:02
Speaker
And the best thing about it is it's consistent. So from 2012 and moving on, yeah, there's some data problems. I wish they would do it a different way, but we figured out how to get around it, but then it's consistent. So it is really good for year over year, really good for jumping into details. The problem we have is you have that, but we also have 12 month unduplicated headcount data.
00:06:27
Speaker
which is very good, but it only started three years ago. Then we have the National Student Clearinghouse survey data, and that comes out very timely, like at the end of the term that they're measuring. And one of our challenges is recognizing you have different sources and different news articles written about it. We almost have too much data over here because you have to resolve these differences. But I'll take these problems over I'm just sad that we didn't have this conversation two years ago because Phil and I could have started a a newsletter specifically dealing with the Department of Education titled, Worn Down by Shenanigans.
00:07:08
Speaker
If we had started it then, we would have won up stories on shenanigans. We're about to end our, well, end this set of shenanigans within a week, so we'll find out. A new set will begin.
00:07:22
Speaker
Yes, it's a new one yeah, I mean to just go back to the year on year comparison stuff and the consistency I think basically the intentions of the change were were good. They're about moving towards more um ah real time Not real-time reporting, but kind of more up-to-date reporting, but I think ultimately for various different reasons, you know, that's caused lots of issues in the system which cause delays and knock-on effects.
Financial Pressures and Growth in UK
00:07:51
Speaker
So the intention was a good one, but um
00:07:55
Speaker
You can't help feel a little bit. We've taken some steps backwards rather than forwards, which was the kind of intention really so it's difficult to say I I feel Because of all of that It's hard to be definitive on whether we see whether we've seen an increase or a decrease But I think irrespective of whether it's up or down It's not up or down in any significant way So, you know if I had to kind of hedge my bets I'd say look it looks looks kind of stable and steady rather than you know, you know ah a big a big move either way
00:08:32
Speaker
Well, but your post took more of a I think off of the headlines and reacting to financial stories. And so more of a narrative approach is sort of. So tell us more about that as far as like, what's the narrative? Because it seemed like a lot of what you were saying is you keep reading about all these negative stories, I think a lot based on finances. But there are some really some interesting developments that are happening.
00:09:01
Speaker
Tell us more about what you're seeing. Yeah, I think basically the um the financial challenges and the positions that UK universities find themselves in, I think ultimately has has created pretty fertile ground for online education.
00:09:20
Speaker
you know There are whole swathes of institutions that are um have a greater level of prioritization for developing online degrees and courses than than I can remember in recent times, where they've got you know a degree over here and a degree over there, and it's been very kind of faculty-led and not so central and strategic.
00:09:43
Speaker
um You've got those universities who you know making looking to make more serious entries into the market Maybe either on their own but often with an OPM and You've got universities kind of looking to take things on a little bit Maybe they've come out of an OPM partnership or for whatever reason maybe a change of leadership They're kind of in an in a second face. So so actually, you know the It's like what always happens, you know, when there's something kind of bad happening, it's not kind of, there's often sometimes opportunities that arise out of that. And I think for online learning, it's seen as, um you know, and an area around international expansion, an area for diversification. And so it's somewhat more insulated than on campus, because it's kind of being viewed as an income generating activity.
00:10:37
Speaker
and a kind of a future um audience ah development kind of aspect of higher education.
Diversification in UK Education Offerings
00:10:44
Speaker
So so you're you're just seeing a lot more activity. And I think the the main headline and the main theme for 2024 for me, and I think it will continue into the next year, is just a growing competitiveness because there are more You know, maybe I think we've talked about in this in the past, maybe that ultimately there are more universities um in the UK that have a greater distance to travel around online education more generally than in the US. And, you know, there are more now that are seeking to kind of take that journey. And I think that's that's driven by the kind of seriousness of the situation that they find themselves in. um And yeah, I think it's just really, really interesting. But
00:11:25
Speaker
you know Alongside that, there's there's a net increase in the number of company partnerships, so OPM partnerships and other style partnerships this year. There's also been some diversification around, I think I've kind of landed on a title that I'm happy with around anything that's kind of beneath a degree, sort of sub-degree courses, so certificates, microcredentials, short courses. There's definitely been more activity there.
00:11:52
Speaker
Easy to overstate that but it's definitely been more activity there. So in a way, like I say, you know is more fertile ground really and there's more appetite to develop those things and I think Financing income are a kind of a key component of that and I think also The international side of things, you know, we've seen a decline in international on campus enrollments I think sometimes actually universities have a slightly misplaced um optimism around online education um and international students. um you know But I think that's also a driver. So it's a really interesting time over here because of because of all of those factors. And I think, um yeah, I can't think of a time in in my
00:12:39
Speaker
period of working in higher education where I've seen as many universities are serious about online education as they are now? Serious in a good way, in a bad way, it's probably both. But like in the US s a dozen years ago, finally a lot of nonprofit universities started getting serious to ask themselves what should be our online strategy.
00:13:04
Speaker
um For better or worse, a lot of that was driven by MOOCs and campus presidents reading articles in the Atlantic and finally having permission to think about this. But then that led to wildly optimistic views. Oh, you make money right away. It's growth, growth, growth, and then ignore competition.
00:13:24
Speaker
But overall, if we look at the past dozen years in the U.S. and we'll get more details there, things have moved along, but there was a lot of hype involved there.
Misconceptions in International Online Markets
00:13:34
Speaker
What I'm hearing from you is at least stated ah more conservatively, like a lot more opportunities you're saying, but you're not describing a lot of this is crazy. ah No, no, there's definitely a bit of that. There's definitely a bit of that. And I think it You know, I think the the kind of roots of that in a way you don't know what you do don't know. So, you know, there's a lot of misconceptions for online, um ah particularly those institutions that haven't really been doing it. So the international one is a classic one. You know, there's there's misconceptions that involve equating
00:14:11
Speaker
what people understand around international on-campus students with online students and you know I think this this is a bit of a crude crude way of um kind of trying to draw out those distinctions but if if in terms of on-campus if you think an on-campus degree for an international student in the UK is um is a highly marked up program You know, it's likely that for an online audience, the reverse is going to likely to be true if you're going to um generate online international recruitments. And you kind of see that for the more mature providers that actually affordability is so... critical for international students who are online in a way that is not um for on campus. So there's misconceptions there around the scale of the opportunity for international, because there's not really an appreciation of the fact that that's a different audience. That plays out also in areas like recruitment. So you know universities will think, oh, well, we just need to get an agent to do this kind of thing. And and the agent network isn't that congruent within online.
00:15:14
Speaker
student recruitment as well so there's some misconceptions there which if you kind of you know if you align with this sense of opportunity around international, then then I wouldn't describe that as crazy. I just think it's misplaced optimism there and based on a kind of lack of knowledge. and I definitely see, though, um some quite optimistic predictions around and the scale of student enrollment growth over three, five years. And I think I said before, I struggle, when when you look at,
00:15:49
Speaker
when you know universities who've done that. um or got close to it and you compare them with the universities that are kind of making those predictions or kind of working on those assumptions, it's there where you see the disconnect. You think, well, you know you don't have the capabilities or um you know that that the proposition isn't isn't attractive enough to to kind of sort seem to warrant that. So um I wouldn't say it's kind of crazy outlandish stuff,
00:16:20
Speaker
But there's a lot of um lack of knowledge which leads to kind of either over ambition or misplaced optimism. I think that's how I'd describe it. I certainly see a lot of that. um you know and And also the one thing is just I'm not taking into account the kind of time that the large places have spent building up those. It wasn't done in two or three years. It was over a very long period of time.
Competition in Online Education
00:16:49
Speaker
Yeah, and I think i think um the other dimension is, ah particularly on things like kind of predictions of growth, is that it is just a lot more competitive now and because of the kind of market entries. But you know you've got some very um some very commercially savvy private universities and private companies working in the market you've got a lot of competition on kind of pricing so you know it is um it is a more competitive market as well and i sometimes wonder if those predictions are kind of based on a market of a few years ago rather than kind of the conditions as they are now well in the u.s i mean we're at head of the UK in online development by and large. But to this day and beyond, I don't think school leaders take into account the competitiveness and how much it's changed. It's radically changed. And ah quite often if you talk to somebody and they think competition, they think, oh, OPM, you know, to you versus rise point. You have to say, no, no, no. The bigger competition is this academic program versus this academic program.
00:18:04
Speaker
And how many offerings and what's realistic growth? So I think the competitiveness is uh Very underestimated, um, probably on both sides of the pond Yeah, and I think just strategy becomes more and more important now and being smart about it because if there was ever a time where you could slightly get away with um You know not really having ah Well thought out strategy or kind of muddling your way through a little bit whether it's kind of the strategic and where you're kind of putting your focus or whether it's in relation to certain capabilities, then I think that time is kind of slowly coming to an end such that I think that's another interesting
00:18:46
Speaker
element of looking ahead to the future and because I think I sort of said in the post that I feel like online education has been kind of largely insulated from some of the cost-cutting that you see kind of on campus but I think what will be interesting going into the next year and kind of beyond is the extent to which if those universities are in that bracket of maybe not having their strategy together, not having their kind of capabilities together, and maybe they're an incumbent that have done well and they see romance declining, you know to what extent will a declining performance kind of
00:19:22
Speaker
A mark them for the chop, if I can put it in those terms, you know, I think that's going to be interesting um as well, because I think, you know, inevitably in a market that gets more competitive, there's winners and losers. Let's look a little bit more at the US and I had put out a post that jumped into all of the data, but the initial way I tend to release that as here's the data. I don't talk too much about the themes. But I guess if I had to summarize it, one thing that I've been saying is the fact this is probably our high water mark.
US Enrollment Trends and Challenges
00:19:55
Speaker
and that the enrollments have gone up across all DE types, face-to-face, partially online, fully online. Enrollments went up for fall 2023 across all sectors as well. And this is all before the FAFSA fiasco hits, because that started in fall of 2024. It's really before the demographic cliff that must not be named a cliff is really hitting.
00:20:24
Speaker
Um, so this was sort of our optimistic data release is what came out, but I've been so deep in the weeds. I'd love to hear Morgan, your sort of top level themes that you're seeing in the U S from the, from the data. Like how do you interpret what's really important that's coming out? So, so I think is, is the very lumpy nature of it. Like we're seeing growth in different ways at different places, you know, so, um, both, you know, so.
00:20:54
Speaker
declining online it and and in some areas, but but then a lot of growth in others. So for example, ah private institutions seeing a lot of growth there at the undergraduate level in terms of online, so sort of seeing that. And then also just sort of you know going at a micro level, not from the data, but um ah from speaking to people and and and reading. you know there's I think it was posted on LinkedIn that that the Illinois IMBA saw a 20% drop last year. and um you know speaking This is the one with Coursera, just for listeners. I went to the degrees at scale thing and there was a presentation on on the Georgia Tech Online Masters in Computer Science and they saw a giant jump last year, you know which was partly, they think, driven by AI and and things like that, but a really significant jump.
00:21:46
Speaker
So you know it's it's very lumpy. it it's sort of it's It's hard to draw trends there, I think, um yeah except that it is sort of continuing to grow or at least you know level off.
00:22:00
Speaker
um But yeah, well, one of the point, and we're about to publish a post this afternoon, um so by the time you listen to this, it'll already be out there. But one of the key things that Morgan was getting on my case to to highlight, Mark, that had it buried at the bottom of the post, is if you look at the private forpro private nonprofit four-year sector, and it's grown the most. So since 2012, it's grown 7.5%.
00:22:26
Speaker
But if you take out the outliers, the the winners in the lumpy war, so Southern New Hampshire, Western Governors, Liberty University, just take those out and look at the rest of the sector. It's actually declined in enrollments by 1.2%. So much of how the headline of that sector looks is just dominated by these handful of schools that are doing tremendously well with primarily online approaches and their strategy. And that's, to me, another example of very lumpiness that you were describing. And so you're not seeing a particular type of institution um kind of winning out, you know, it's not private over public, you know, it's kind of lumpy across institution types.
00:23:16
Speaker
it's Yeah, it's it's the people that my initial thing is, yeah, the category or the ones who started investing 15, 20 years ago, and their strategies are really paying off and continue to pay off. So Arizona State, the ones that we mentioned, Grand Canyon University,
00:23:36
Speaker
um I really find it interesting what you were mentioning, Morgan, about the IMBA in Illinois going down while the Georgia Tech was going up. You can't really associate these types of things with sector, per se. it's It's almost like individual cases and a lot is based on their investment profile when they started taking online seriously. how do you What do you see, Morgan? Do you see any commonalities?
00:24:04
Speaker
Yeah, you know, I i i think, um I mean, partly, I think there's there's a big difference in those two examples between an MBA, which is just very crowded. And your, you know, Georgia Tech has such a ah brand and a very low cost profile. So, you know, I think there's some interesting kinds of things there. um Whereas, you know, that the MBA spaces, you know, there's there's 400 odd online MBAs and nbas and and and and things like that. So I think it's it's complicated. I'm trying to wrap my head around that um sort of longer term. ah
00:24:40
Speaker
ah ah But you know I think a lot depends on the on on the field. But I think you're right that it is also about when places decided to invest. I mean immediately thought of the the the personal finance thing about yeah the best time to invest for retirement is 20 years ago.
00:24:58
Speaker
and online learning is the same thing. You you should have started 20 years ago. yeah I think that that is it now i so as a point I make, not in relation to when you should have invested, but in terms of that differentiation between you know if you're investing in the stock market, that's a long term investment. And I think that that's given Given the differences and the the differences around the kind of capabilities that if institutions often need to develop, yeah I think it's much better thought of in that way. There's various different factors that um you know influence institutions not
00:25:39
Speaker
thinking in that way, or they're being bumps in the road, not least things like leadership changes and ripping up the strategy and starting again, or the kind of sense of it's, you know, maybe not performing as well as people would like, and and those kind of things. Yeah. But I don't want to get too much into into, into smart, smart, smart quips. But also, while you were talking, I was thinking I read a book, the subtitle of which, well, I didn't read a book, I found a book to read.
00:26:07
Speaker
the the subtitle of which was strategy eats tactics for breakfast. um you know and I think that's true of online as well, but you know it has to be it has to be a longer term investment. You can't sort of chop and change every 20 minutes.
00:26:22
Speaker
I think the whole online MBA space and MBA space in general is interesting in terms of and how that how that's doing and I was chatting to someone over here in the UK who you know so basically said to me that they felt that the online MBA market was really primary, really international now.
00:26:38
Speaker
over here, which I guess, you know, pointed to, you know, maybe an interesting change in perception around some of around the kind of value of an MBA. um But yeah, that I guess that's a little sub story of if those examples, maybe.
00:26:54
Speaker
What I was gonna point out was sort of the demand side is that, and that runs counter to the narrative that were heard that we heard so often during COVID and that ah people are sick of Zoom University and they and they're getting forced into online. And certainly that happened in the height of the pandemic. But one of the data points that I still find interesting is if you take that past trend of the growth of online,
00:27:24
Speaker
And then you project, it was a very linear growth in the US.
Impact of COVID on Online Education
00:27:28
Speaker
And then if you project it forward to where we are now, if that trend had kept up and we'd never had the pandemic.
00:27:35
Speaker
We've actually jumped in the US by about 12% higher than we what we would have forecast. If you had asked me to forecast it in 2019, I would have done a straight line projection. We're 12% higher. So COVID, we're done with it now. COVID actually increased the number the percentage of students going online.
00:27:58
Speaker
And I attribute that, I mean, there are multiple factors, but one is I think there's just a demand. People, their lives are different. They're trying to figure out how to get lifelong education beyond the 18 to 24 years. And we've always known that, but I think COVID really accelerated that in a way that we don't appreciate. All the news stories back then were about, oh, this is going to harm online because it's done so poorly.
00:28:26
Speaker
but I actually think the demand ah from students just got, had more options and then we haven't gone backwards on it. So it's actually COVID it's an accelerant. I think there was also COVID accelerated a shift in people's acceptance of stuff. You know, like if you think about online dating, you know, ah neither of you have probably done much of that neither of I for a long, long time, but there was a time like in the late nineties where if you If you said that you met somebody online, it's like, oh my goodness, that's the most awful thing. And now if you speak to the generation that's that's that's dating, it's like, of course we met online. Where else are we going to meet in a bar? you know What kind of a creep are you? Yeah. I did just watch the Ashley Madison documentary, but we'll avoid that topic. Yes, yes.
00:29:20
Speaker
But yeah no, I think you're right. Isn't that more on the faculty side, though, than on the student side? Both faculty and students. um You know, so now if you get a degree, if you're a student, you know, or or something, it's like, yeah, I did it online because I'm busy. I've got stuff. So I think it's both both both instructors and students.
00:29:39
Speaker
Yeah, I'd agree with that. I think there's definitely been a reduction of a kind of stigma around online. I was gonna say dating then, online degrees. I think I always felt it in the UK because of the dominance of the OU and those kind of sense of like, the OU is the university of the kind of second chance and it's you know i still I still get this from universities and there's still kind of people within universities that pigeonhole on online in that way, that it's for this particular demographic that's served by this you know big dominant institution in our in our country.
00:30:19
Speaker
Um, but I I would agree with what morgan's saying. I think there's definitely that that kind of erosion of kind of stigma Of online and you just don't really see that as much and I think yeah to your point phil I I feel I feel like what we need is we need um, we need a kind of um We would I think when we last got together we were talking about the survey and with all of the kind of narrative comments from people who kind of need a survey that like is about the changes in demand and why people have chosen online and we just need those snippets. I think that's what we need. Yeah, that would be interesting. And in the US, probably more than anywhere, I think that our the demand is battle tested. I mean, we've just had an onslaught regulatory against online education, and which has bled over into
00:31:09
Speaker
And we still get these. I mean, it just came out in the past week. We had a couple of awful stories, in my opinion, talking about online, you never get a degree. And um and it's just like under constant attack. Yet at the same time, you two in particular are describing less of a stigma, more of an acceptance of it. And we're about to change administration to the US. It really makes me wonder, moving forward, is this going to accelerate ah you know exploration of online education even more as we'll have, less well, certainly at the federal level, we won't have the people attacking it.
00:31:48
Speaker
the way that we have in the past so it's here it's almost grown in demand despite all of the narrative stories all of the attacks and all the the research that's uh quasi research that's been pushed out once we get past that to a degree are we going to start even accelerating in the us even further and what online demand is I think we we're going to continue to see attacks. They may not be from the Department of Education, but we'll see attacks, unfortunately. um But will they have the same impact not coming from the federal government? Well, I mean, that they they that they can't change rules, but there that there is something to be said about demonization. And and I think that we'll continue to see a ah sort of steady drumbeat of that. But that's sort of separate, I think.
00:32:40
Speaker
I think we will see, you know it's it's it's it's working much less with um with with online degrees because it it just makes sense for people's lives.
Convenience and Policy in US Online Education
00:32:51
Speaker
They don't want to get in a car and drive for whatever of our hours and and and and so on. um you know i i Over the vacation, I was listening to an interview with the founder of Upswing and both his parents um were were in the military and continuing to to do their on their learning while while he was in school and he would he would drive for two hours for his mom and sit on the steps of the university while she went to class. you know The sort of capacity for that I think is is declining. So I think we will continue to see to see um ah increases even though some people who write about online learning are still fighting the wars of 20 years ago and and can't get over it.
00:33:39
Speaker
Do you get any sense of the kind of groups that might be more influential for the kind of new administration? Because I feel like you know the thing that that you're describing kind of happens in the UK. And I think there's that sense at the moment where we have a new government. um There's not a lot of detail. And one of the things that really interests me is is you know which cliques, which groups, which policy influencers are going to be the ones that kind of get into the inner circle of this new government and the department for education and all the associated bodies and what does that mean for well i guess all parts of higher education but it sounds to me that you know you had the Arnold ventures and you guys kind of uh i guess kind of did a lot to kind of uncover all of that but do you get any sense of what groups might be attaching themselves to kind of
00:34:29
Speaker
Department of Education and those that have an influence and what their view might may or may not be around online education. Well, I mean, a lot of that remains to be seen. I mean, we're right at the peak of that over the next two to three months because we'll find out.
00:34:44
Speaker
but So for example, the Heritage Foundation did Project 2025. They didn't really talk about online education at all, but they did talk about undoing all of the harmful regulations or approaches of the Biden administration. But then at the same time, the Trump ah team distanced themselves from heritage. So I think that part of what we're going to see is over the next two months,
00:35:12
Speaker
ah which Which description is accurate? Are they sort of in league together, but they just didn't want to admit it as part of the election, or is there a very different approach? And I'll give one specific example, and I discount this too much, and I think we need to take it more seriously. But the ah the Trump ah team has talked about their national online university, which And I discount it like that's all bluster. That's negotiating. There's no way they're going to do that. I mean, you would argue Western governors in Southern New Hampshire already are our national online universities. So I discount it. Well, I think in the next couple of months, we'll find out if there's any teeth behind those things. I assumed it was just negotiating ploys. um So I guess I'm
00:36:04
Speaker
Really hedging my bet saying I don't know the answer, but I think the next two months are going to tell us a time ah well i I mean, I I feel like for once I could maybe even just jokingly say that you're trying to catch up with us, you know three-year degrees at a national online university, I mean Like I'm in a rare position of saying come on guys. I mean, yeah Well, this is part of the reason I discount the online university. um is The American Academy, I think, is what they've dubbed it. But is it doesn't there's no coherence with what the Trump message is. Because if you really look at it, it's like, oh, so you think the federal government should determine ah
00:36:49
Speaker
you know, education and provided just like the online, you know, open university did decades ago. That's really your model. It makes no sense to me. So yeah, you can make fun of us for this right now, but I at the least think that we need to, I personally need to not discount it as much as I have. And I need to explore, is there any teeth behind that at all? Is there any teeth? And and if it actually comes into being,
00:37:17
Speaker
Will they actually put the resources in it to make actually make it grow in in a meaningful sense? I would answer, I would predict not, but that's because I'm gloomy. and have a particular set of political convictions. Yeah well presumably as well they'd face significant competition as well I mean we're not talking you know if you draw the comparison of the open university kind of launching in a time when you know there weren't there wasn't kind of widespread type of that provision you know but you'd like to think that would be a calculation look how successful would this new
00:37:51
Speaker
Initiative be against all of these, you know to the points made earlier the kind of institutions have been in the game for 10 20 years, you know Yeah, that must that would have to be a consideration you'd hope at least Yeah, I could think of a dozen reasons why this doesn't make sense, but we're gonna have to write about it. So Well, so let's sort of look forward even beyond the American Academy mythical or not and say, what are we expecting or ah hoping that we see? And I'll throw a one in to
Innovation and Engagement in Online Courses
00:38:25
Speaker
get started. This is not necessarily our predictions, because we talked about doing a predictions episode. But given where we are, and there's going to be, I mean, orders of magnitude, less pushback from the federal government of the US around online education,
00:38:41
Speaker
That doesn't mean a lot of the complaints were completely invalid. Online education does need to be designed to be more engaging. We do need to focus on student success and better outcomes. And there's a lot of programs I've seen that are very mired in the past and people aren't taking it seriously. So one of the things, this is more of an aspiration than a prediction.
00:39:07
Speaker
But I really want to look in 2025 in particular to see if we'll get schools, instead of protecting themselves, really trying to innovate on the course redesign and engagement and improving the quality of online courses. now Put it another way, I think now is the time to make some real progress in that area.
00:39:33
Speaker
That's more of an aspiration than a prediction, but what are you guys going to be looking forward to trying to understand? Yeah, I think for me, and this is kind of observations, but also kind of, I guess, a bit of a hope that I hope the kind of growing competitiveness um I was talking about, you know, leads to more universities kind of upping their game around online. And, you know, um you know, that applies to the kind of the student experience that you're referring to Phil, but also just generally in terms of strategy, I guess I want to be able to look across more universities and say,
00:40:09
Speaker
I can get a sense that they've got a really good strategy or a well thought through strategy for what they're doing. And that's evident when I observe what they're doing. um Similarly, kind of hope that there's more, I guess, investment in the kinds of roles and capabilities that are going to help those institutions kind of get mature in what they're doing around online. And as a consequence, there's a bit more variety in terms of how you know, how people market their online programs or their kind of the portfolio, how their put what how their portfolio looks, how those how that portfolio relates to each other. So that's kind of what I'm looking at the way in which you universities respond to competition and the hope is that actually that kind of rises, that that that's the kind of tide that rises, you know, boats got or boats kind of rise. um But yeah, that's that's kind of what I'm looking at mainly.
00:41:04
Speaker
And how about you, Morgan?
International Recruitment and Cost Management
00:41:06
Speaker
I want to key off something that that that Neil talked about in terms of expectations of international or online. Because over the yeah fairly recently, I spoke to somebody at a fairly large, one of the big, well-established online programs. And they said they're really upping their international recruitment. you know They're sending people abroad and and and and things like that. So places are really starting to do that. And I think there's going to be some innovation there. I am also hearing from other programs who are trying to sort of think about ways to lower costs internationally through international arbitrage. you know So hiring the TAs or whatever in the country where the students are to keep costs lower in the case of a developing country or an emerging emerging economy. So something like that. So I think we'll see some
00:41:55
Speaker
Some more um innovation there. We'll see some broken hearts, but also some ah innovation and and and some some breakthroughs, I think.
00:42:05
Speaker
So there is a lot of, the era is changing, um is one thing I would say. I was at at a conference or a summit that I'm not allowed to talk about the details, given the nature of the summit. But it was interesting to me having a lot of the ah college leaders really trying to figure out What can be improved we're in a new situation and so there's a new set of challenges that we could address or improve and it was surprisingly optimistic.
00:42:39
Speaker
um and It sounds like all three of us, to a degree, are saying we've got new things that are being tried out and new opportunities. That doesn't mean we predict they're going to work by and large, but at least it seems like we're this really is a turning point um that we're sort of seeing over the right now, but even over the past year or so.
00:43:03
Speaker
I don't know if that's a fair description from your perspective. Yeah, definitely. Yeah, it definitely feels that way. But yeah, yeah we'll see what the what the year brings. It's gonna be an interesting one. Yeah, it's the year of the snake. So all kinds of new changes will will come there. And ah so with Chinese New Year, so yeah.
00:43:25
Speaker
Well, good. Hey, well, it's great ah talking to you guys in the new year, looking forward to the podcast. And now that we're all up upping our video game, hopefully, look forward to keep developing this podcast and we'll be with you guys again in another two weeks. Thanks.