The World Campus was a pioneer of online education (actually, a pioneer in distance education altogether, considering that it used Rural Free Delivery to begin mailing correspondence courses to farmers in the late 1800s). My colleagues and I have been writing about this online arm of Penn State University for more than 20 years, dating to the days when the Sloan Foundation was awarding millions to it and other fledgling ventures that were developing asynchronous online learning. One of our latest longer pieces came out in 2014, when Renata Engel was named associate vice provost for online programs. She’s now vice provost.
Its name aside, World Campus draws relatively few international students. Only about 4 percent are overseas. It does have a national footprint, though; only about 29 percent of its graduate enrollment and 38 percent of its undergrads are in Pennsylvania. About 15 percent of students are also enrolled as residential Penn State students, either at the University Park campus, which I visited, or at one of the 20-plus other branches..
Two things really struck me in my conversation with Engel and the associate vice provost, Karen Pollack. One was World Campus’s apparent caution in offering new programs. It doesn’t start them until it and the relevant academic departments agree that requisite foundational courses also are available in an online format that satisfies the faculty. Pollack said the standard is: “Would you accept a graduate from this program into your doctoral program?”
Such decisions are easier to make when the online campus is considered an integral part of the overall institution. But caution runs both ways. I also heard privately from some faculty members who bristle that the marketing team at World Campus too often nixes ideas for new programs. Pollack acknowledged the hesitancy. “We’re not saying yes to as much,” she said, but attributed that to concerns about being able to compete and keep 160 existing programs up to date.
Engel’s nonchalance about about big-spending competitors also struck me. Over all, World Campus takes in about $170 million a year in revenue, so it won’t be matching Maryland on internet ads or on TV anytime soon, or probably never. Rather than expanding the top of the admissions funnel, Engel said, World Campus is focusing on improving its retention.
That begins with getting admitted students to actually attend; as many as 35 percent of admitted students never enroll. “Our transfer-credit process might be a barrier,” she said.
She also hopes to find more donor support to expand a pilot scholarship program designed specifically for World Campus adult students who come to college with little or no experience in higher education. Along with a $1,500-per-semester scholarship, the Smart Track to Success program provides students with a specially designed two-semester free course that includes faculty and peer mentoring and just-in-time skills tutoring to help students navigate their first year. It now serves about 70 students a year.
Penn State never formally called off that big enrollment goal from the early 2000s. Engel and Pollack both said they value it for the “ambition” it fueled, but it’s not really part of their day-to-day planning. Meanwhile, Engel said, easily 250 adults enrolled in Penn State right now could benefit from Smart Track to Success. No doubt, that’s one expansion she’d be happy to oversee.
From the mouths of adults: what colleges should keep in mind about adult students
The second highlight of my time at Penn State was hearing from the adult students who took part in a Hendrick Conference panel. For me and the 250 or so Penn State administrators and faculty members in the room, the comments were an important reminder of the challenges real people with real lives face when they decide to enroll in college later in their lives. Here’s how they described some of those challenges.
Costs. Michelle Stroud, a nurse pursuing her doctorate in the field at the World Campus and at Penn State at Altoona, said that without financial aid, she probably wouldn’t have returned to college. She thinks of every dollar she spends on tuition as money “I’m taking away from my family.”
The application process. Laura Ruane, an aspiring substance-abuse counselor attending the DuBois campus, recounted the anxiety she endured after noting on her application that she had a felony conviction in her past. It dated from the days before she got sober. “I had to say yes to a box” and just wait, she said. “I didn’t have a chance to talk to anybody about it.”
The disconnect with friends and family members. A 45-year-old student on the Altoona campus, America Rojas said her “parents couldn’t understand why I was going back to school.” They did eventually come around and are now her “best support system.” But Scott Carl Schival, a former Marine who treated his posttraumatic stress disorder with drugs and alcohol before getting sober and deciding to return to school after learning that his wife was pregnant, said he’d lost a few friends as he’s put more time into his English-major studies on the Wilkes-Barre campus. “They couldn’t accept the fact that I’m not available anymore.”
The rest of my visit …
I did take my usual land-grant-university detour to the campus creamery — and can report that the Scholar’s Chip at the Berkey Creamery stood up well to the chocolate I sampled last year at the University of Minnesota at St. Paul — but sadly I didn’t have an opportunity to see the creamery in action. On a less tasty but more relevant front, I also spoke with WPSU radio about adult students, the changing role of credentials, and the value of the college degree. Once that interview airs, I’ll include a link in a future newsletter.
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