Are You Learning on Empty: Parts II, III, & IV…

Posted on July 16, 2008 by Jennifer Brady

Jennifer Brady, UMassOnline Director of Marketing You may recall this post we ran mid last month about the effect of rising gas prices on students’ choice of online college options versus commuting to and from campus? Well, the story is getting a lot of ‘mileage’ of late.

On July 9th, for example, Associated Press writer Nancy Kelsey filed a report with a Boston dateline entitled, ‘High gas prices fuel boom in online classes.’ The news piece opens with a telling vignette featuring our own UMass Amherst and a student there who is making the switch from on-campus to online:

Laurel Ranticelli considered driving 40 miles round-trip to take education classes at the University of Massachusetts campus in Amherst. Then she realized she could take the same courses from her computer at home and save on fuel costs.

Then The New York Times, decided to do some original reporting of its own on the topic. And once again, the University of Massachusetts was featured in their July 11th article. This time, writer Sam Dillon turned to the University of Massachusetts, UMassOnline and its CEO David Gray as a key source:

David Gray, chief executive of UMass Online, the distance education program at the University of Massachusetts, said that at an educators’ conference this week in San Francisco, officials from scores of universities discussed how the energy crisis could affect higher education. “There was broad agreement that gas price increases will be a source of continued growth in online enrollments,” Mr. Gray said… Among the four-year institutions reporting increased online enrollment, UMass Online, which enrolls students at its five Massachusetts campuses and worldwide, experienced 46 percent growth this summer over last among students at the university’s Dartmouth, Mass., campus.

Lastly, also on the 11th, we learned via an email from Ray Schroeder, Professor Emeritus and Director of the Office of Technology Enhanced Learning at the University of Illinois at Springfield, that he has started a blog on the topic. It’s called “Fueling Online Learning.” It was, in fact, a post by Mr. Schroeder that informed our first post on this subject. Of the new blog, Mr. Schroeder writes:

For those who are interested in the possibility that increased gas prices may be “fueling” increased enrollments in online and blended classes, I have created a little blog. So far, I have posted more than two dozen news reports from around the country with local examples of this emerging phenomenon.

Without a doubt what these stories are proving is that the price of gas is now a factor in people’s decision to consider online educational options. But how big of a ‘driving impact’? Has the phenomenal historic growth of UMassOnline – which continues today — been solely a function of energy prices? In my view there are as many as a dozen more critical considerations a would-be online learner has. Is the institution reputable? Does it have world-class courses? Are the faculty well-known for teaching excellence in their field? Will I be enrolled with other students with shared skills and expectations for robust study?

At UMassOnline we welcome new learners who are finding us for the first time because the cost of gas has motivated them to seek alternatives. At the same time, we’re confident that what they’ll find is an institution that has established a national and international leadership position for innovative course development, blended learning options, international reach, and world-class faculty.