Leaders from a quartet of area academic institutions gathered Aug. 2 for a roundtable discussion. Though the forum was open to the host of issues and trends facing the higher education world today — and of course it touched on the rising cost of education — the focus was clearly on one area: the increasing surge in off-campus/online studying.
University of Kentucky President Eli Capilouto was joined by his counterparts Owen Williams, president of Transylvania; Morehead President Wayne Andrews; and Bluegrass Community and Technical College President and CEO Augusta Julian. They gathered onstage in UK’s student center theater as part of the College Business Management Institute’s 60th annual conference. Each member of the group agreed to the significant increase in not only the number of students taking online courses, but in the ever-evolving course selection and methods of instruction.
There have still been challenges that come with the advancement. For example, the increased access to information and educational outlets has contributed toward a larger demand for acceptance into various schools, with attendance rising more than eight percent nationally over the past few years. But so has the cost, as the average tuition price as climbed 2.4 percent higher than the rate of inflation during the past decade.
And while things continue to be streamlined, that doesn’t necessarily make them less expensive. For example, the cost of books hasn’t dipped and isn’t expected to drop in the near future, due to existing relationships with various publishing houses. The plus side of digital books, however, is the ease in updating or freshening material.
“Technology is important and will continue to change the landscape of education,” Williams said. “But it’s highly speculative, because none of us knows where it’s going to take us. … All we know is there is a tsunami about to wash over us, and it will be significant.”
The shared concern, however, was how the increased focus toward online studying would be a detriment to students by denying them the “traditional” on-campus college experience.
Morehead State, which Andrews said awarded 27 percent of its credits via online courses last year, has broken from the norm by bringing in younger students through a program that allows high school juniors and seniors to earn college credits early. It launched its Early College Program two years ago, offering those high school students access to faculty at the main campus in Morehead, at one of its regional campuses, or online during the fall or spring semester. Students, who must have a minimum 3.0 grade-point average and an 18 composite on the ACT exam as well as meeting any additional requirements for certain courses, receive a 60 percent scholarship through the program and are responsible for the remaining tuition.
Early College students who enroll in courses instructed by an approved teacher in their own school system (with each instructor working with a member of the Morehead faculty) receive a full waiver for the cost of tuition. Those students might not receive the “traditional” experience of four years in a classroom, but Andrews and the rest of the panel conceded the definition of “traditional” can be an evolving term.
“Students are increasingly expecting different things from us,” Julian said. “We were chatting earlier about what it means to be in higher education right now and how, as administrators, our beliefs about that and history comes from a set of experiences most students don’t recognize. So when they come to us now, it’s more and more with a different assumption of what they’re experience can be and should be. They expect more technology, but we still have to remember the classroom experience is important. … The pressures on us are just going to get bigger and bigger and bigger.”