FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE CONTACT: Anna Martinez
Tuesday, June 16, 2009 Phone: 214.438.4155
HIGHER ED HOLDINGS HELPING STATE UNIVERSITIES GAIN MARKET SHARE
DALLAS – An article posted yesterday by the Chronicle of Higher Education suggests that higher education will be the next “bubble” to burst. The article reports skyrocketing tuition rates, room and board, and other fees have sent students and parents searching for alternatives in community colleges and online, nontraditional institutions. Higher Ed Holdings is at the forefront of helping some universities find alternative, affordable solutions for students and parents.
In order to keep the bubble from bursting, as the article suggests, institutions must find ways to operate more efficiently and look for revenue sources outside of tuition. Moving courses online to affordably increase student access to the institution is exactly what one state university in Beaumont, Texas is doing through a partnership with Higher Ed Holdings. Lamar University moved its master’s degrees in education online and “has seen its enrollment mushroom since working with Higher Ed Holdings to increase access to some of its programs.”
Companies like Higher Ed Holdings and organizations like the National Center for Academic Transformation can provide a great service to brick and mortar institutions by helping them use technology to “transform” education. Schools that use the services of Higher Ed Holdings are ready to expand their reach across existing geographic boundaries. The online courses are built and moved online by the university faculty, and once programs are ready to launch
The move toward online institutions is a growing trend, but not new. A report by the National Center for Public Policy and Higher Education called Measuring Up 2008 says that the move online has been steadily increasing since the early 1990’s. The report also notes that more than 4 million students enrolled in an online course in 2008, a statistic brick and mortar higher education institutions can no longer ignore.
