Taking Education to Students: How Public Universities Have Lagged Online and What They Can Do to Catch Up. Solutions from beyond the Beltway

Fewer than half of working-age adults hold a credential beyond a high school diploma. As the economy increasingly moves from an industrial base to a knowledge base, this population will need access to high-quality degree programs in relevant fields. Fortunately, online learning has made this achievable. The challenge of serving this population with online programs is a fitting task for America's public universities; however, to date, they have largely failed to meet it. Public universities have ceded market share to private providers, failed to achieve meaningful scale, and generally underperformed relative to the market opportunity and the imperative of their missions. This failure is not one of pedagogy or course design or quality. Rather, it is primarily a failure of market awareness, as well as business and legislative design. This report describes how changes in approaches to student recruitment and enrollment, as well as rethinking some common legislative mechanisms for funding higher education, can make a big difference in allowing public institutions to reclaim market share and even expand the market of online learners in their home states and beyond.