Comments on 8 Reasons For Engaging with EDU For-Profits

• And I once believed in the tooth fairy
• Posted by Joe Beckmann , consultant, development & planning at schools, colleges, CBO's on January 13, 2011 at 8:45am EST
• Until oral surgery. There is a very low ratio of tenured faculty in the entire for-profit sector, since most are part-time, grad student peons. While there's nothing wrong with profit - and many non-profits show positive bottom lines - there's plenty to distinguish differences. For example, the only reason they would look at Dartmouth is for marketing, and, while that may be true of Dartmouth's look at the for-profit competition, at least you'll have an 8 point screen.
  
  The bad teeth are, frankly, obvious. Jump to the surgeon rather than peer into the horse's mouth.

• What is to gain from for profity
• Posted by Tom on January 13, 2011 at 9:00am EST
• I feel like the biggest gain that traditional edu could have from interacting with the for-profits is an injection of the recruiting intelligence. Students are the primary source of revenue for an institution, so understanding how a school get's its "customers" makes all the difference in growth strategy.
  
  In such an depressed time, with state budgets being slashed left and right, if traditional schools know how to acquire out of state or international students at a low cost per enrollement, I believe alot of the current budget issues would dissappear, and schools would be able take more in state students.
  
  For-profits understand the exact source of their enrollments, back to the first time that a prospective student clicks on a link (yes, before they even fill out an inquiry form). I feel that traditional schools could develop much more strategic plans that would effectively protect them from economic turmoil if they focused their customers.

• Let's start
• Posted by Dennis , For Profit Proff at two on January 13, 2011 at 9:30am EST
• I may just have to start a blog. :)
  
  There are differences between the two institution types. No, few for-profit's have tenured. They prefer to be able to eliminated low-performers when needed. We don't do a lot in the areas of research. However most for-profit schools do focus on quality education in my opinion. There is a group of for-profit schools whose focus is simply profit with minimal attention to quality. It can be difficult to tell the difference between the two schools without interviewing graduates.
  
  I do consider myself an educator. I left industry to teach and try to help students understand what it will take to succeed in the work-force and equipment them with both the technical and soft skills to do that.
  
  On-line for-profit institutions do (or should) have superior technology to deliver course material. As a prof, I personally also invest in multi-media technology so that my students get the best that I can deliver.
  
  Are all on-line professors as focused on student learning? Are your colleagues as focused on student learning? Are they distracted by research? By the goals of tenure? Demands of organizational service? Out of date for the material they teach? I don't think either the for-profit or the non-profit has exclusive claim to perfection.
  
  Dennis

• Standards for online
• Posted by Marjorie Vai on January 13, 2011 at 10:30am EST
• Dear Joshua,
  
  I couldn't resist this. re. standards for online, Kristin Sosulski have just (yesterday!) published a book on online course design that is organized by standards. I hope it helps.
  
  http://essentialsofonlinecoursedesign.com/
  
  Marjorie Vai
  
  

• A 9th reason to engage with for-profit education
• Posted by Sheila Curran , Career Strategy at Curran Career Consulting on January 13, 2011 at 1:00pm EST
• I can add a 9th reason for talking with for-profit colleagues: the need to design and deliver more effective career services to students.
  
  For-profit colleges will undoubtedly be in the forefront of designing more effective career services because newly proposed gainful employment rules will make their existence dependent upon better career outcomes for graduates.
  
  Many not-for-profit colleges and universities also need to pay attention to careers because it's only a matter of time before schools with high student loan default rates are likely to be affected by the same kind of legislation.
  
  All schools, whether they focus on liberal arts or pre-professional studies, benefit from services that prepare students for success in finding positions that are commensurate with their education. So it makes sense to learn from those schools in the for-profit and not-for-profit sectors who have made enhancement of career services a priority.

• The two differences - For-profit and non-profit
• Posted by Jim Farmer at instructional media + magic inc. on January 13, 2011 at 4:30pm EST
• There are two fundamental differences between the non-profit and profit-making higher education.
  First, the profit-making colleges and universities have access to investment capital for course and curriculum development. The cost of a quality on-line course has been estimated at $1 million. This has been consistent for a decade as the lower costs of producing media have enabled a higher quality—a tradeoff also seen in the motion picture industry as digital production was introduced. Dave Motz, in IHE’s article “A New Model Community College,” described Altius Education. Altius raised $8 million in 2009 and $18.6 in 2010. A substantial part of that went to course content development and instruction process improvement. Justifying that level of development would be difficult in the typical teaching college. UK’s Open University spent $1 billion (yes, with a “b”) for course development of their Bachelor’s degree program. There is one exception—the community colleges that developed television courses have made that level of investment over three decades. They now have talented course designers, constantly improved instructional processes, and extensive library of “learning objects.”
  Second, the incentives of both the faculty and students are different. If faculty are measured on the basis of publications and citations—bibliometrics, teaching will have a lower priority. As Harvard Dean Harry Lewis observed “Don’t be surprised when faculty do what they are paid to do.” Publications is not a criterion of for-profit colleges. A residential campus environment is not required and would not be used by working students. Scheduling to meet their needs rather than a typical academic day (which many community colleges have abandoned) is necessary.
  There are all kinds of for-profit colleges and universities. Those more successful long term can be helpful partners of traditional colleges and universities. For example, the University of Phoenix and Pearson eCollege representatives participate in PESC and SIFA and support the Common Data Standards initiative. They have brought another perspective to their discussions.
  In my work with both kinds of institutions I have never had a for-profit fail to respond to a request for information. Some of the more useful discussions have been with their sharply-focused staff and faculty. As I learned, the University of Phoenix would be an activity of the College of Engineering of San Jose State College if the Dean had given tenured professor John Sperling permission to teach “after work.”
  

• Transparency by Design: Where for- and non-profits collaborate
• Posted by Cali Morrison , Manager, Major Grants at WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies on January 13, 2011 at 5:00pm EST
• It's interesting that you raise this topic as I, personally, feel that both for- and non-profit institutions can benefit greatly from open dialogue. One place I have had the opportunity to witness this sharing of learning outcomes, assessment measures and results of those measures is through the Transparency by Design initiative (http://www.transparencybydesign.org) and the College Choices for Adults website (http://www.collegechoicesforadults.org).
  
  At the beginning 13 institutions, with a diverse mix of for- and non-profit, came together to create a data model for reporting data beyond institutional demographics for adult students. They all agreed that program-level learning outcomes, assessments and recent results were the key to helping adults make an informed decision about college choice. Mind you, the differentiation between institutions did sometimes bring about spirited conversations about how and what data should be reported, but it was all done in the context of academic dialogue.
  
  This effort has been successful, though still growing, because the institutions involved have shared openly, across institutional type. The benefit has been a two-way street with each type of institution garnering some value from their interactions with the other types of institutions.
  
  We're always looking for more institutions to join our conversations and publish data on our website. Our membership requirements are simple:
  Membership in Transparency by Design (TbD) is open to all regionally-accredited, adult-serving* higher education institutions that have some or all programs offered at a distance.**
  
  *enroll students of a non-traditional age (23 years and older).
  **distance encompasses online, hybrid, competency-based and other flexible learning formats.
  
  Member institutions also commit to the TbD Principles of Good Practice, submitting data for third-party review by WCET and publication on College Choices for Adults, and providing support for the initiative with annual dues.
  
  I invite you all to check out the initiative and I'd be more than happy to have a discussion with anyone about TbD membership.

• Thanks for being open
• Posted by Susan Fein , Instructional Designer at Washington State University on January 28, 2011 at 11:15am EST
• I just want to thank you for your open-minded approach. I am a for-profit institution graduate working in a traditional non-profit university. Sometimes I'm amazed that they were willing to hire me, because the negative view of for-profit education is intense. I believe I got a great education and am grateful that a program was available to fit my lifestyle and educational needs. I appreciate your awareness that there is common ground between the two approaches and that perhaps we (non-profits) can learn something from the for-profit institutions. And finally, thank you for pointing out the tendency to lump all for-profits into a single category.