UNC to push online degrees

As more students take classes on the Web, UNC goes after those who would enroll at University of Phoenix

Educators who run the University of North Carolina system are hungry to enroll more students like Rob Gray.

A physiologist at Duke Hospital by day, he drives about 20 miles west each evening, where he eventually settles in for a few hours of classwork at the Rob Gray campus of East Carolina University in Efland. The location is better known as Gray's home, where he is earning his MBA online in addition to spending time with his wife and his 2-year-old son, and working full time.

That type of interest in UNC's online programs has convinced system leaders that it's time to launch the University of North Carolina Online, which will aggressively promote more than 90 existing degree programs on one Web site: http://online .northcarolina.edu/. The campaign takes direct aim at the nation's largest online institution -- the University of Phoenix -- with ads on Yahoo and Monster.com that boast: "All of our online degrees come from universities your prospective employer has actually heard of."

But more than a decade of online education has taught educators that classes online are far different from the classroom. If the UNC system is serious about going toe-to-toe with Phoenix -- a for-profit university that enrolls more than 300,000 students -- it will inherit the problems of online education as well as the profits.

Online learning has grown dramatically in the past few years. As of 2006, about 1.5 million students took classes online in the United States, according to Eduventures, a company that specializes in education information services. In North Carolina last fall, nearly 25,000 UNC students took online classes, as did about 75,000 in the community college system. Increases have run more than 10 percent every year.

That growth attracted UNC, which this week will launch its site. Hoping to capitalize on people's familiarity with the 16-campus system -- in North Carolina and throughout the world -- UNC President Erskine Bowles has declared the university will "market the hell out of this."

The UNC system isn't the first to compete directly with Phoenix. Universities such as Columbia and Temple tried to establish programs a few years ago that failed to meet expectations for growth. What Phoenix enjoys is a big head start in enrollment and a keen understanding of how to mix marketing and classroom efficiencies.

A nontraditional model

More than half of the 300,000 students who attend the University of Phoenix never step into a classroom. Their online classes follow a tightly scripted syllabus. Students who choose to physically attend classes are served by about 200 locations in 37 states, the District of Columbia, Canada and Puerto Rico. The locations are typically leased space in office parks or business suites near highway interchanges for easy access.

Little about the university follows the traditional model. There are no athletic facilities or big research labs. Programs are confined to the most popular areas, such as business, technology, health care and education.

"Our students are more likely to be midcareer, working adults who are looking for additional education on their terms and their schedule," said Nicole Darmody, who oversees the campuses in Charlotte and Raleigh. "We are built on that premise."

UNC can draw on a curriculum developed over the decades, but it isn't likely to match the net profit margin of about 15 percent posted by the company that owns the University of Phoenix. In fact, a study provided to the legislature last year suggests online classes will initially cost UNC more than its traditional classes -- about $1,300 to teach a student online compared to an average of $892 in regular classrooms.