Internet Learning Volume 3, Number 2, Fall 2014 | Page 28

Positioning for Success in the Higher Education Online Learning Environment • Southern New Hampshire leverages its status as a private non-profit university while promoting its low costs and its online competency-based College for America that is aimed at corporations and charges only $2,500 a year. • WGU, the low-cost self-paced competency-based university, has grown by promoting its affordability and the connection of its curriculum to employer needs. It has expanded to five states, establishing itself as a legislature-recognized in-state online learning institution. The growing strength of the nonprofit institutions in the top ten list is indicative of a larger trend where the traditional online, mainly for-profit, powers are beginning to lose market share to non-profit institutions that are beginning to grow their operations at a larger scale and the increasing number of smaller institutions in the space that are collectively chipping away at the overall market share. This market erosion of the larger providers is exacerbated not only by other schools expanding their offerings, but also by the proliferation of non-traditional entrants such as organizations providing American Council of Education-approved courses like StraighterLine, OER providers, MOOC companies, coding bootcamps, and badge providers. The resulting over-supply is hitting at a time of stagnating higher education enrollments and slowing online growth, producing an online content supply and demand imbalance. While this has led to a wealth of options for students seeking educational content, it has also intensified the level of competition, especially among colleges and universities attempting to enhance enrollments. In such an environment, many institutions will need to differentiate themselves if they seek to gain students through online education. Key Online Higher Education Market Differentiators To be successful at scale in the competitive online higher education market will take leveraging market differentiators. Among them include the following: • Brand Matters – The prospective online student is not a particularly savvy shopper. Eduventures has noted in several of its adult higher education consumer reports over the years that most online student prospects only consider 2-3 schools, setting the highest priority for schools local to them and those that have been recommended to them by a personal acquaintance (Eduventures, 2012). In an increasingly competitive market, better-respected institutions with large networks of students, faculty, and alumni, will gain the reputational advantage. Coupling branding with outstanding academic quality and student service, affordable pricing, industry-relevant curriculum, and a network of professional contacts will prove a very worthy value proposition in the market. This “branding premium” combined with competitive pricing can give a huge market advantage to an already established institution. For instance, according to Eduventures, 44% of all online degree enrollments originate in the same state as the provider. However, when those data are broken down by institution-type the percentage is much higher at 77% among public institutions because they have the locational branding advantages, in-state pricing, and they provide the student comfort in being able to travel to a campus if they need face-to-face communication (Eduventures, 2014). 27