Is Valpo strapped for cash?

[usc4valpo]

Good points. Online education is convenient, particularly for part time students.

[FieldGoodie05]

Valpo missed the boat to provide online education.many small colleges have provided this and in some cases it has been a lifeline.

Respectfully, I do not agree that online education should have been or should be a great strategic emphasis for Valpo. Think about why people come to Valpo and the value that they get out of Valpo. Great teaching that is personal provided by people who care. This requires relationships, which I do not see possible with online education. There may be a place for online education at Valpo, such as replacing the few large lecture hall classes that are not associated with a given student's major (which could create cost savings while not reducing relationships). Offering full online programs, however, is a battle that Valpo cannot win and one in which its greatest strength has little value.

I'd have to agree with this statement for the most part.  Valpo was attractive to me for the class size, school size and moral values that accompany a Lutheran university (without the religion playing a big part).  That being said, that was 2001 so times undoubtedly have changed.

Putting together full online degrees seems unnecessary for VU, but students need options to complete their degrees in 4-years.  As a student athlete in two sports I ended up staying an extra semester by choice.  That added a debt load then, but today it would be quite a bit more.  I should have had the option to take online summer courses in my electives such as the ridiculous Art History and Calculus that I was required to take with my degree at the time.

I would think that online elective level courses during the academic year and during summer semester would be advantageous.  There is certainly some form of crisis taking place with student debt, and in the case where a student has extenuating circumstances or obligations that pull them away from the university for one or more semesters over their intended 4-year degree, these would be great values.  Not to mention other students outside of the aforementioned examples would benefit too.

Again, mostly electives and maybe some 101 level courses being the main offerings I would think.  I say a lot of this because my unproven opinion is that Universities get more value from an alumni (donations after graduation etc) then they might get in a 4-year student as a whole.  This involves a lot more than just donations, it's success in the business world and referrals that land graduates in the market place etc etc.

I welcome others thoughts and opinions on this topic, I am not well versed in academia and the current University business environment.

[crusader05]

The best way to go with online classes is probably through the graduate school. Other schools have had success with that as you usually work with a company that provides the platform and organization. I think they could benefit for more online classes over the summer so students don't go to other schools to pick up a few extra credits here or there but if they wanted to find ways to bring in more money at less stress and cost online for graduate school would definitely be the way to go.

[vu84v2]

The best way to go with online classes is probably through the graduate school. Other schools have had success with that as you usually work with a company that provides the platform and organization. I think they could benefit for more online classes over the summer so students don't go to other schools to pick up a few extra credits here or there but if they wanted to find ways to bring in more money at less stress and cost online for graduate school would definitely be the way to go.

This can be an effective option, but there are a two problems that I have seen with this approach. First, many outside companies have a different mission and different incentives than the university they contract with. If the university is not careful, you can end up with graduate online programs where you are essentially a correspondence program and/or you are just giving away certificates and degrees. Second, it still requires faculty to take time away from classroom teaching and building relationships with students to develop and teach the online graduate course. It takes a great deal of time to transfer a course to online and a lot more time than you may expect to manage an online course (assuming that you want to do it well and, at least, at parity with other online programs). Relatedly, a school like Valpo likely has many faculty who do not want to use their time in this way (think about why they came to Valpo and that many faculty take somewhat less pay to be at Valpo because the university's methods and mission resonate with them).

[usc4valpo]

Perhaps the faculty need to place energy on online teaching as it could effect their jobs.  We need to get away from the I Like Ike days, folks. There are some classes, several 101 classes, that can be taught online. Valpo does not need to go the same direction as Purdue, but in 2019 online classes need to be available.