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).
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