Five years ago, the Georgia Institute of Technology launched a bold experiment: take a high-level graduate program, bring it online, and offer it to students at a fraction of the cost of the degree in person.
Working with massive open online course provider Udacity, and armed with a $ 2 million in corporate investment From AT&T, Georgia Tech launched its online master’s degree in computer science in the spring of 2014. Tuition was $ 6,630, or about one-sixth the cost of an on-campus degree.
It was a huge bet. Could an online degree really match the quality of a degree taught on campus? Would the institution cannibalize its degree applicants in person? Would the program make money?
An analysis of Georgia Tech’s Pioneering Online Master of Computer Science – Written by two Harvard researchers and one from Georgia Tech and published in Education Next, a journal focused on school reform – suggests the bet has been won.
Although the institution has failed to meet its ambitious goal of enrolling 10,000 students in three years, enrollment has grown from 380 students in spring 2014 to 6,365 this spring, making it the largest master’s program in computing in the United States, and probably the world.
Joshua Goodman, associate professor of public policy at Harvard University, co-authored the report, which says Georgia Tech has expanded access to education by appealing to a group of people who otherwise wouldn’t have pursued master’s studies.
“People thought they were crazy,” Goodman said. “They thought Georgia Tech was going to cannibalize its own source of income. But the profile of people who apply online is so different that there is hardly any overlap.
Analyzing the first six cohorts of the online program, from spring 2014 to fall 2016, the report found that the typical candidate for the online program was a 34-year-old American in mid-career, while the typical graduate candidate in person was a 24 year old Indian graduate.
Of the 18,000 students who applied for degrees in person and online, less than 0.2% applied for both, according to the report.
Students admitted to the online program generally had slightly lower credentials than those admitted to the program in person, but they performed better in their identical, blind final assessments – a finding the study hailed as “the first evidence. rigorous that we know to show that an online degree program can increase educational attainment.
Using surveys and data from the National Student Clearinghouse, the report found that about half of the students who were rejected from the in-person program ended up in similar programs at prestigious institutions such as the University. Carnegie Mellon or the University of Southern California.
However, students rejected from the online program were much less likely to enroll elsewhere. Those who did (less than 20%) typically chose online programs at lower-ranking institutions such as DeVry University or Arizona State University, according to the report. He concluded that there is currently an unmet demand for high-quality, low-cost degrees like Georgia Tech.
Goodman said that in his future work he would like to explore how the job market values the online degree over the in-person degree, and whether students who have studied online have experienced career advancement as a result of their qualification.
Zvi Galil, dean of IT at Georgia Tech, described the program as a “huge, unqualified success” that has already had a “significant impact on the higher education landscape.”
“Georgia Tech has not only shown that it is possible to deliver elite graduate education online, but it opens up whole new markets for previously underserved students,” said Galil. Georgia Tech announced a second low-cost online master’s program in analysis in January 2017, this time offered through MOOC provider edX, with donations from AT&T and Accenture. AT&T initially sponsored the development of Georgia Tech’s computer science degree so that its employees could take it as part of their corporate training. (Note: This paragraph has been updated to clarify that the MA in Analysis has a corporate sponsorship.)
External perspectives
Ryan Craig, managing director of investment firm University Ventures, agreed that Georgia Tech’s online program appears to serve “a whole different population” from its in-person program – working adults who cannot engage in full-time graduate studies.
But while Craig is a big supporter of the Georgia Tech program, he’s worried it’s a one-time event. “Udacity was in its early stages and keen to partner with post-secondary institutions (they don’t anymore) and AT&T was looking to fund the development of such a program,” he said via email. . “None of these conditions are still true today. So despite its success, don’t expect more of the same.
Other institutions have followed Georgia Tech’s lead, but so far none has matched Georgia Tech’s “ultra-low” price tag of around $ 7,000, Galil said.
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign announced a Online MBA in 2015 and has since launched two other online masters in collaboration with the MOOC Coursera platform, one in computing and one in accounting. Each costs approximately $ 20,000 to $ 30,000 to complete.
Also in 2015, edX and MIT launched a MicroMasters program that allows students to study half online, half in person. Earlier this month, Coursera announced six new masters from institutions such as the University of Michigan and the University of London. None of these options seem to be cheaper than Georgia Tech’s full-scale online degrees.
One of the barriers to Georgia Tech’s low-cost offering is the high upfront investment institutions have to make to develop an online course, said Paxton Riter, CEO of iDesign, a company that helps institutions develop. create and design online courses. Riter said Georgia Tech’s low prices reflect long-term thinking on the part of the institution and an altruistic desire to pass the savings on to students, which is very admirable. While this may put some pressure on institutions to lower prices in the future, Riter said many institutions may be reluctant to follow suit.
Jill Buban, Senior Director of Research and Innovation for the E-Learning Consortium, said many in the e-learning community would like to offer more low-cost, high-quality degrees.
“We have been thinking for a long time about how to offer high quality and low cost degrees. And [Georgia Tech] has shown that it is possible, ”she said. But she agreed with Riter that not all institutions might be able to make the initial investment. “At some point it will become cheaper to develop online degrees,” Buban said, “but I don’t think we’re going to hit that tipping point anytime soon.”
While Galil acknowledges that AT & T’s investment helped Georgia Tech build the computer program quickly, he argued that the subsequent implementation of similar programs elsewhere “shows that it is indeed possible without significant investment from partners.” .
John Hart, director of online and professional programs at Urbana-Champaign’s IT department, said the barriers to delivering low-cost, high-quality degrees aren’t just financial. “There are concerns about the diversity of students,” Hart said. “Are we just offering a cheaper degree to students who would have paid a high price?” He added that faculty members may also be reluctant to travel online. “Even in IT, they’re still hesitant to take the plunge,” Hart said.
Adam Fein, vice-rector for educational innovation at Urbana-Champaign, said many higher education students “are terrified of cannibalism in this space.” But Fein and Hart agreed that they expected more institutions to move towards high-quality, low-cost MOOC-inspired degrees like that from Georgia Tech.
“We’re not there yet,” Hart said.
