Why academic institutions must embrace online learning
Alec Kretch is the founder of OpenClass — easily build mastery-based review assignments around your content for free at OpenClass.ai.
The bubble is bursting.
After decades of rising tuition rates and decreasing acceptance rates, the Coronavirus is poking its figurative needle into the higher education balloon.
College executives have been putting out fires left and right since March. Increasingly, campuses are switching to online delivery for at least fall courses. Many students will not pay full tuition for a believed lesser experience.
How can schools survive this financial hit?
Some school systems are looking to consolidate. Some schools are accelerating launch plans for pipelined programs. Most schools are preparing extremely frugal budgets, that has already resulted in the layoffs or furloughs of at least 50,000 college employees across the country.
As distressing as the consequences of the Coronavirus have already been on society, the future of higher education does not need to look so bleak.
Education is a pillar of our society, as I have written about many times. Sacrificing quality is not an option. Teaching must grow, not shrink, as a lucrative profession.
The only path forward for schools to maintain their profit margins is to increase enrollment. The only way to increase enrollment without sacrificing quality is to embrace technology.
This is a golden solution. Clear as day.
Higher education has always been slow to adapt to change. The pandemic serving as a catalyst for educators to finally embrace technology will be one of the long-term silver linings of these stark times.
Technology enables live remote lectures and mass auto-grading. Tools, such as my project OpenClass, have the ability to optimize learning for each student. We’re nearing the point where the difference between teaching 40 students and 40,000 students represents a difference in only paycheck, not workload.
Students that want the on-campus experience will be able to get it at a fraction of the cost. Students that want to learn purely online will have that option.
Schools can half their tuitions and triple their margins. The answer is technology.
If you’re from an academic institution and want to learn more about OpenClass or bring it to your classes this fall, please contact me via email at alec@openclass.ai.
