Why Online Education is Here to Stay

Michael Lewis is not the first to note that over the past 30 years the state’s share of the budget for the University of California has fallen from 30 percent to 11 percent, and it is about to fall a lot more.  What remained unclear until recently is how the resulting smaller UC system could possibly educate Californians.  One proposed solution (or pilot in government-speak) is online education.  The UC Online instruction project will launch approximately 20 to 25 courses.  These will be evaluated and, if deemed successful, the program will be expanded.  As you might guess, the pilot has its share of critics. 

Graduate student teaching assistants call the plan just one more example of how the UC is sacrificing undergraduate education in order to maximize profits.  Lecturers aren’t thrilled with the idea either.  In fact, the union representing lecturers recently agreed to a deal that they say would bar the UC system and its campuses from creating online courses or programs that would result in a change to a term or condition of employment of any lecturer without first dealing with the union.  The UC system says that the union could force the UC to “resolve the problem” but could not force it to stop an online course.

And there’s good reason to be skeptical of the lecturers’ unions claims.  For, like it or not, distance education has arrived.  Today, you can earn a Master’s degree in social work in California either wholly or partially online.  Minnesota’s governor speaks of iCollege when asked for an example of smaller and more effective government and most public institutions have online degree-completion programs.  And it’s not just a question of money (though it is arguable that had it not been for the fiscal crisis the explosion of online education programs would not have taken off as quickly).  A number of factors are driving this—not the least of which is that the kids graduating from high school expect information to be available to them any time and any place.  And since, in the real world, teachers do need to sleep, the only way to make the kind of education students expect available to them is by going online.  Not only that, but because the high school graduates of today are so accustomed to interactions online, it turns out that they tend to learn better online.  And it’s not just high school graduates.

In the current economy many working adults are turning to online learning as well.  These people didn’t grow up with the Internet but the Internet is probably the only way they can get retraining.  These are the folks who are either afraid that their job is on the proverbial chopping block or they have already been laid off.  In either event, they are busy during the day because they are either looking for work or at work so the only time they have to go to school is at night or during the evenings.  And that usually means they need an online course.  For one of the great ironies of this Recession is that even while millions of people are out looking for work, many companies cannot find enough qualified workers.

For all these reasons then, online courses are swiftly becoming the norm.  They are, as Christopher Edley suggests, here to stay.