Symposium Explores International For-Profit and Online Education

Since the end of World War II, academia has slowly been emerging from the Ivory Tower. The GI Bill of Rights, the mass university and the concept of lifelong learning were all introduced to extend educational opportunities to greater numbers of Americans. 

Today we have corporate and online education ventures reaching out to students all over the world. Although distance learning has been around in some form or another for more than 100 years, the information revolution has brought it to the cutting edge of higher education. Recent technological advances and the globalization of business and knowledge have radically altered our conceptions of time and space. E-mail and the Internet have made the world a smaller place while national borders are becoming increasingly irrelevant in the information age. As a result of these changes, new modes of learning and alternative providers of higher education have emerged to challenge the role of the traditional university. 

Other trends across the globe have also contributed to the rise in for-profit and distance learning. The surging demand for college degrees in Asia and other parts of the developing world, coupled with diminishing government funding for universities worldwide, have encouraged the private sector to play a more active role within the realm of higher education. Not surprisingly, the for-profit education industry sees tremendous potential in the expanding international student market. Even colleges and universities have jumped on the bandwagon offering distance-learning programs of their own. 

What does all this mean for the future of international education? As I wrote back in the March/April 1999 issue of WENR, the recent explosion of corporate and virtual universities on the scene has changed the rules of the game, so to speak. The traditional strategy aimed at bringing students to the university is shifting to include beaming the university overseas via the Internet and other technologies. Will international educators be able to adapt to the many changes engendered by globalization? Or will they end up as road kill on the information superhighway? 

World Education Services marked its 25th anniversary last November by holding a symposium on for-profit and online education. The objective here was to look at distance learning and globalization within the context of international education and to initiate a dialogue among participants. Speakers included members of the academic and business communities, in addition to experts and promoters of distance and for-profit education. 

Keynote speaker Fareed Zakaria, managing editor of Foreign Affairs, kicked off the event by comparing the globalization of today with a similar trend of the late 19th century. He noted some fundamental differences between the two. First, while the globalization of 100 years ago referred mainly to trade, the trend we are experiencing today is truly "a global phenomenon" affecting everything from the conception to the manufacturing to the consumption of goods and services. 

Secondly, unlike its predecessor, modern globalization includes significant parts of the non-Western world. Many countries in the developing world, for instance, are now exporting skilled labor to the industrialized nations and are rapidly becoming consumers and investors as well. The third major difference, according to Zakaria, has to do with global leadership. At the end of the 19th century, the globalization phenomenon was on "thin ice" because the great power that guided and sustained it — Britain — was going into decline vis-à-vis the United States and Germany. 

In contrast, the United States, which serves as the main engine for today's globalization, is not in a state of decline. On the contrary, American power and influence have increased since the end of the Cold War. Zakaria predicted that disequilibrium between the United States and other countries is likely to continue for the next five to 10 years. 

Finally, and perhaps most importantly, Zakaria spoke about the effect of globalization on culture. He argued that culture tends to change with the impact of great trends and that globalization is bound to transform age-old traditions in many societies. Although the United States has always shown resiliency and flexibility in the face of change, the rest of the world — and developing countries in particular — might be in for a bumpy ride.

Joseph Duffey, senior vice-president of Sylvan Learning Systems and former director of the United States Information Agency, predicted three trends in higher education worldwide. First, there will be a dramatic surge in the number of people who want some kind of higher education. Secondly, governments will have neither the resources nor the inclination to fund the expansion of higher education and will increasingly encourage private investment and the proprietary higher education sector. And finally, more and more families will save and sacrifice for their children's education. 

Duffey believes that the for-profit education industry can play a vital role in helping to meet the burgeoning demand for higher education overseas.

"Sylvan's plan outside the United States," he said, "is to invest in proprietary universities — always with a majority interest but also with a local partner — and to give that partner incentives to expand the quality and relevance of what we're doing, and to have those universities work together in some kind of international synergy." 

These new programs will differ from traditional colleges and universities in two respects: 1) They will cater primarily to students rather than faculty; 2) the courses and programs they offer will be more skills oriented to better prepare students for the job market. 

Gerald Odening, an education analyst with Hambrecht & Quist, said students and investors stand to gain the most from distance learning programs. 

"The distance education market has currently reached $5 billion and will grow to $22 billion in the next few years," he predicted. "By the year 2000, at least 2 million people will be enrolled in some form of distance education." 

Odening noted that, while most institutions would like to be able to offer courses and programs online, many do not have the resources or the know-how to do so. To avoid going it alone and to minimize the risk factors inherent in launching a distance-learning program, many colleges and universities are establishing for-profit subsidiaries that attract Wall Street capital to finance these ventures. 

What are investors looking for in a distance-learning program? "Convenience [for the student] is the essential factor," Odening said. "Cyber universities do not have the kinds of facilities to maintain that you have with the bricks and mortar schools, and courses and programs can be exported to international students." In short, the private sector is attracted to programs that are easy to access by the largest number of students. "If a distance-learning program is too cumbersome to use — if it requires expensive software or hardware — investors are less likely to put money into it," he added.

Convenience for the student translates into profit potential for the investor. Odening explained that it is precisely the "higher dollars" that make distance learning so attractive to the for-profit education industry. 

"If the University of Phoenix [for example] is making money and generating high returns on invested capital, then investors will continue to put money into it," he said. 

But not everyone is convinced that the information superhighway holds the answer to the future of higher education.

Sandra Elman, executive director of the Commission on Colleges of the Northwest Association of Schools and Colleges, expressed some concerns over quality assurances with regard to the recent proliferation of Internet-based learning programs. "I have yet to be persuaded that cognitive competencies and cognitive judgement can be effectively acquired via distance education," she said. Secondly, online education might not be structured enough within a degree program and could encourage students to engage in what she termed "course shopping" in lieu of taking the general education component.

"Higher education within a country and as an international community cannot be and should not try to be all things to all people," she cautioned. "We need to ask [ourselves] what is the purpose of online education for a particular institution? Is it to offer degrees, or is it to provide opportunities to enhance one's skills or competencies?" 

Peter Scott, vice-chancellor of Kingston University, compared the internationalization of the past with the globalization of today and discussed how both trends have affected higher education. The two trends are not synonymous and may even be diametrically opposed to one another, he said. Internationalization is based largely on a system of nation-states determined by power politics and the Cold War. In contrast, globalization necessitates intensified collaboration between different parts of the world. 

"It implies a radical re-ordering of the status quo as new regional blocs emerge and as national boundaries, in a fundamental sense, are rendered obsolete by the transgressive tendencies of high technology and by mass culture as well," he said. 

Will the university as we know it be superceded by a rival institution sometime in the not-too-distant future as a result of these changes? Scott says no. But it is undergoing a process of transformation. We are currently witnessing the emergence of new paradigms of knowledge production, while the old canons of knowledge are being challenged and redefined, he said. 

"It is a bit premature to talk about the impact of for-profit and distance learning on higher education," Scott said. "What is clear, though, is that we don't need institutions like we used to." Increasingly, coalitions, networks and partnerships are becoming much more important than institutions, according to Scott. "So the threat may not come from a new kind of university; it may come from no kind of university," he said. "Maybe in a society pervaded by knowledge we will no longer need universities or higher education as they are currently organized." 

John Ebersole, associate provost of Colorado State University and an internationally recognized promoter of distance learning, noted that half of the world's population is currently under the age of 20 and that the demand for college and university degrees is mushrooming out of control. 

"Unless we can provide these young people with access to higher education, there will be great instability in the world," he warned. "Traditional methods of delivery are not sufficient to meet the demand." 

That's where distance learning can play a crucial role in offering higher education opportunities to overseas students who — for whatever reason — cannot come to the United States.

"Distance education can provide an option for those individuals," Ebersole said. But despite these opportunities, institutions still need to overcome the many obstacles associated with launching and maintaining distance-learning programs, he said. These include resistance to new technology from traditionally minded faculty members and administrators, and the need to be culturally sensitive when beaming online courses and programs into other parts of the world. Bureaucracy and censorship in many countries, not to mention limited access to the information superhighway remain problems as well. 

In Ebersole's view, distance education will not replace the university but will enhance it, and he stressed the need for American universities to form partnerships with foreign institutions to facilitate the exchange of information. 

Professor Abdul Khan, vice-chancellor of Indira Gandhi National Open University (IGNOU), agreed with Ebersole, saying that distance-learning technologies offered the best hope in meeting the expanding demand for higher education around the globe and within developing countries in particular. 

While many of the other symposium participants represented the providers and financiers of distance-learning programs, Khan spoke from the consumer end of the trend. 

In India, for example, where the demand for university qualifications is exceptionally high, distance learning has served to take up some of the slack. At IGNOU, there are 7,000 students taking online classes this year. 

But despite India's efforts to educate more students online, there are numerous drawbacks associated with this type of delivery system, Khan said. Access was first on his list. 

"In my country, only 6 percent of the total number of all people who are old enough to attend college actually have access to higher education," he said. "Reliable electricity supplies still remain a major problem in India, and the affordability of online education poses another challenge. Computers are expensive in India, and at 35,000 Rupees per unit, not many people own one." 

However, Khan is confident India will overcome these difficulties and adapt to the changes engendered by globalization. 

"The traditional kind of bricks and mortar schools would be very difficult and costly to expand in most developing countries," he said. "Distance learning represents the wave of the future, and institutions that don't embrace the trend are going to get left behind." 

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