The University of California System, after five years and millions of dollars spent, is asking for more time and money to get its systemwide online education initiative off the ground.
The 10-campus university system began to seriously consider a centralized approach to online education in 2009, as California faced a multibillion-dollar deficit that led to budget cuts, layoffs and tuition hikes across the state. Online for-credit courses, administrators believed -- and to some extent still believe -- could alleviate some the system's access issues and create a new source of tuition revenue.
But five years later, California's economy has rebounded, and the exigency to go online and do so quickly has diminished. As a result, UC has changed its course, choosing to focus on high-demand online and hybrid courses developed at one or more campuses to benefit students across the system.
The shift was perhaps best summarized by Janet Napolitano, the former U.S. Secretary of Homeland Security who became president of the university system last September. During a talk organized by the Public Policy Institute of California this March, Napolitano played down the importance of online learning.
"I think there's a developing consensus that online learning is a tool for the toolbox where higher education is concerned," Napolitano said. "That it's not a silver bullet the way it was originally portrayed to be."
Read more at Inside Higher Ed: https://www.insidehighered.com/news/2014/08/13/changing-economy-changes-online-education-priorities-u-california