Earlier in the month, one of my colleagues sent me a link to an article from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, titled “The Ugly Secret Why Tuition Costs a Fortune.”  The article notes that in today’s somewhat unstable economy, the cost of most consumer goods are falling, yet higher education has somehow managed to insulate itself from this fundamental economic trend.  Examining why this has been the case, the article pulls from evidence found in Mark Bauerlein’s paper published by the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, “Professors on the Production Line, Students On Their Own.”

Bauerlein, an English professor at Emory University, offers an eye-opening explanation of a starting trend in academia: the “publish or perish” dilemma facing young professors hoping to be hired or veteran faculty members on the path to tenure.  According to Bauerlein, between 1980 and 2006, William Faulkner garnered some “3,584 books, chapters, dissertations, articles, notes, reviews, and editions.”  In the same time period, Charles Dickens elicited 3,437 studies.  While there can be little question that scholarly critical works on these authors and others are worthwhile for full understanding of their works, one must begin to question how many works on any one author are required before the topic becomes “overdone.”  Bauerlein cites that the demand for a new book in the English literature area rarely exceeds 300 copies.

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The U.S. Department of Education released the findings of a meta-analysis conducted by its Office of Planning, Evaluation, and Policy Development on Friday that confirm what online educators have known for years: “on average, students in online learning conditions performed better than those receiving face-to-face instruction.” 

Online education has gained tremendous momentum in the last several years.  A November 2008 report titled, “Staying the Course: Online Education in the United States, 2008” published by the Sloan Consortium notes that during the fall 2007 semester, some 3.9 million students were taking at least one course online, representing a twelve percent increase over the previous year.  During the same semester, twenty percent of all college students were taking at least one course online.  An Eduventures report from November 2006 predicted this growth; that report found that half of the 2,000 potential students surveyed indicated that they would be interested in completing a degree online.

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Our programs and courses have been online since 1996.  There are several organizations that track the progress of online post-secondary enrollments including Eduventures and the Sloan Consortium.  There’s no doubt that the convenience of online post-secondary programs is a major reason that more and more adults are continuing or furthering their college education through online degree programs.

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