California Experiment Could Open U.S. Market for Online Courses

A California proposal to use online courses to soften a higher-education funding crisis has the rest of the country watching for lessons in how to deal with the rapid expansion of high-tech learning.

The experiment, floated by a Sacramento lawmaker last week, would allow the nearly half-million students on waiting lists at the state's public universities and colleges to take online courses instead.

The bill has been touted as a way to release pressure on a system overwhelmed by a surge in enrollment and crippling budget cuts. But it could also open the door to free "massive open online courses" (known as MOOCs) developed by private, third-party vendors — a development that could spark massive changes in the the country's education system.

Many other states are grappling with issues of limited money and higher enrollments — both of which are functions of the country's economic downturn — and are toying with ways to offer online courses, but none so much as California. They view the California proposal as an experiment that could help guide them, warily, into an uncertain future.

"They're all a little spooked at what's going to happen," said Eric Hanushek, a fellow at the Hoover Institution of Stanford University who studies the economics of education. "We have these MOOCs, and no one understands the business model behind them, how to charge for them, who pays for them, who gets credit for them and in what way."

The results, he said, could lead to a revolution in the higher education industry, with Silicon Valley startups rushing to meet demand.

Like many innovations, the California experiment was born of calamity. The state's three-tiered system of universities and colleges was created to give students of all talents and means a way to earn a degree. It was a huge success, but relied on massive amounts of state funding to keep tuition low. Starting in the late 1970s, taxpayers and lawmakers began to reduce that flow of cash. Tuition and fees went up. So did student debt. Faculty were laid off, and course offerings reduced. Officials estimate that 470,000 students at California's community colleges cannot get into classes required for graduation.

The crisis coincided with the rapid growth in the number of online courses developed by private for-profit startups, many of them free.

Advocates of the California proposal say that if it succeeds, it could lead more states to try MOOCs, especially as pensions and health benefits eat up a growing amount of state money, and the Obama administration pushes for ways to make higher education more affordable.

California "is probably a bellwether for what's going to happen across the country, because the business models for these public institutions are broken," said Michael Horn, director of the Innosight Institute, a Bay Area think tank that pushes innovation to solve education problems. "These startups are going to see an opportunity and want to meet it."

"I think what you're going to see in terms of a trend is the state tinkering with online courses," said Matthew Smith, policy analyst at the Education Commission of the States. "They'll watch the failure and dropout rate, and then if they find success there will be a large scaling."

Officials in many of those other states are watching with a mix of interest and skepticism.

"California is in a much different situation than we are," said Karen Hunter Anderson, vice president of the Illinois Community College Board, which has seen a surge in enrollment over the last five years and has its own internal system of online courses. "I think that the community colleges and university administration and faculty in Illinois are very wary of using MOOCs as a solution to the current higher education issues."

Steven Johnson, the vice president of public affairs for the Texas Association of Community Colleges, which has lobbied against state funding cuts at a time of higher enrollments, said the system's existing online offerings suited students fine.

But Hanushek, of the Hoover Institution, said that any states that fail to take MOOCs seriously are in danger of getting "run over."

"Some of these online courses are really well done," with higher production values and better teaching than some traditional core courses at public universities, he said. And they could be cheaper than what the brick-and-mortar school is charging.

"Of course, there's still the question of what is the business model," Hanushek continued. "How do you pay for the development of these courses, and get the returns you need?"

That, he said, is why "California could be the experiment that everyone watches."

California Bill Would Promote Statewide Online College Courses

The legislation calls for development of 50 online classes as potential substitutes for the hard-to-get core courses required for graduation at UC, Cal State and community colleges.

Students locked out of overcrowded core courses at California's state colleges and universities should instead be able to take those classes online, according to legislation introduced Wednesday in Sacramento — sending shock waves through academia nationwide.

The bill by state Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg(D-Sacramento) calls for the development of 50 online classes as potential substitutes for the most oversubscribed lower division courses required for graduation at UC, Cal State and community colleges. In a controversial portion, the proposal would allow these classes to come from commercial providers or out-of-state colleges if their academic quality passes review by a panel of California faculty.

"The world is changing. Technology is a growing force in our lives and we want to use it to try to help as many young people as possible be able to achieve their dreams and compete in the modern economy," Steinberg said during an online group video chat.

His bill, SB 520, Steinberg said, would reshape higher education by partnering it with the technology "to break the bottleneck that prevents students from completing courses." He described it as the first such effort in the nation.

While some California academics did not want to publicly criticize such a powerful figure as Steinberg, they said they feared that the quality of education could suffer and teaching jobs could be lost if state schools lose control over part of their curricula and allow more private companies to get involved.

Cal State faculty union President Lillian Taiz issued a statement pledging to work with Steinberg but pointedly added: "We want to maintain academic credibility and the delivery of accessible, quality public education, rather than chase the latest private sector fad."

Some experts said the proposal could ease financial pressures on colleges and universities and improve graduation rates.

Steinberg's bill could be "a watershed moment for higher education" and encourage the rest of the nation to take similar steps, said Dean Florez, a former California state senator who is president of the Twenty Million Minds Foundation, a Pasadena-based organization that seeks to widen access to online learning and helped shape some of the bill's ideas.

With the state Senate leader behind it, some form of the legislation will land on the governor's desk even if details change, predicted Florez.

UC, Cal State and California community colleges are working to boost online learning, with Gov.Jerry Brown advocating forcefully for such a goal and offering extra funding for it in next year's budget.

For example, in January, San Jose State began a partnership with the for-profit Udacity organization to offer more low-cost online classes in entry level subjects. The same week, UC system leaders pledged to have UC students take about 10% of classes online in a few years.

On Wednesday, Daphne Koller, the Stanford University professor who is a co-founder of the for-profit Coursera firm, said she thought that Steinberg's plan would help more California students finish college on time, and show that massive open online courses — so-called MOOCs — offered through groups such as hers are rigorous enough for college credit.

Under SB 520, the UC, Cal State and community college systems would each have three faculty representatives on the panel to certify online courses for credit. Among the factors to be reviewed would be whether the classes provide enough interaction with instructors. 

Though online courses would offer limited face-to-face connections, the students are "still in an institution that provides a lot of support for them," said the bill's co-author, Assemblywoman Cristina Garcia (D-Bell Gardens).

The bill does not specify fees for the courses, but Steinberg said the costs should be comparable to or less than current ones. The bill also does not provide separate funding for administration or outline how many online classes can be taken for credit.

Patrick Callan, president of the Higher Education Policy Institute, a think tank in San Jose, said the bill is a major step because until recently, California colleges had been slow to innovate.

"It appears that up until this year that [the schools] preferred to turn away students than try these new ideas," he said.

via LA Times