Why Not The Ivies?

[Alpha]

Another criticism of the article might be related to the article's subtitle, "...what's happening to change it."  The last paragraph in the article describes two possible paths forward are described with one sentence each and are hardly worth reading through the entire story.  There is some optimism however.  It does appear, from the article and the comments above that there is a growing number of online degrees and other credentials coming from the Ivies.  I'm imagining that they are paying close attention to the Purdue Global experiment.  They don't want to dilute their elite reputations but they wouldn't mind putting some of those online dollars into their pockets.  One small step I'd look for would be for Harvard to quietly removed their requirement for an on-campus semester for their HES degrees.  That would likely result in a huge jump in enrollment by students outside the US and often, these folks are willing to pay virtually any price for the program. Another thing to look for might be the expansion of doctoral level degrees.  We've seen some evidence of some school's interest in this, even to the extent of inventing new degree titles in order to create and online doctoral program.  I'm imagining that any/all of this requires a motivated administration, dept. chair, etc. to make something like this happen.

The article talks about extension programs as a solution, but the Ivies already have extension programs with easier admissions standards that are separated to protect the rest of the university's reputation. The fully online programs offered by non-extension departments are highly-competitive. As for HES, courses that require a weekend on campus meet the residency requirement. All one needs to do is take two or three hybrid courses; an entire semester on campus is not required.

That's good news to my mind.  I'm a bit surprised that more people don't take advantage of these programs.  I know they're not cheap but the quality can't be questioned.