Will offering online courses to all students cannibalize my enrollments?

When a school introduces distance education into their system, there is sometimes the fear of cannibalizing existing student base. Hopefully when your finished with this post you’ll see that offering Online solutions to ALL your students is the best way to success on and off line.

1) The traditional student is fundamentally different than the online student

2) Traditional students will always exist, simply because they are attending college for a different purpose than a non-traditional student.

This issue also arose when distance education was first introduced sans internet, but via video/tv. Yet, as someone who works in school administration, you have to ask, why would someone take distance courses if they can physically come to your campus? That’s just the thing, they can’t. The reason why there are people that take online courses is because they have different goals than the 18-24 year olds that want to get a “college experience”.

People that attend school online:

- Can’t physically go to a campus

- Don’t have time for traditional learning

- Need school for career advancements

When asking this question ask yourself, who is a distance learner, and why are they going to school online. The simple fact is that education is like any other business, diversification is key. By providing online course you open the door to students that would never have attended your traditional college, as well as truly exploit the concept that the world is flat. Providing online courses to anyone at your institution you open up to people who are presented with extenuating circumstances that usually would not be able to continue their education, and those who may have grueling schedules like working students, athletes, or international students. Think about it an athlete that need to be eligible, but can’t fit a class into their schedule, and international student that goes home over the summer, but wants to go to summer school, or working students that end up dropping out because they don’t have time for class. Cannibalization is an issue that schools need not worry about, and if it is a concern, ask yourself if students are going to choose online over campus schooling, why would I not give them the option to stay at my school. One third of students will not return to a school after freshman year, largely due to life circumstances. So why not give then the opportunity to get a degree with a school they clearly already value.

Cannibalization is truly unfounded, that would be like coke saying they will not sell water because then no one will drink their Coke. On the contrary, people that want water will find it whether Coke offers it or not.