Teddy Ducree, a 32-year-old New York resident, had no idea about the private company helping Morehouse College run online classes.
Teddy Ducree is pursuing his bachelor’s degree through Morehouse College’s online degree program. He was surprised to learn that the advisor he thought worked for Morehouse actually works for a company called 2U. Courtesy of Teddy Ducree
When he asked for advice, he thought he was speaking with an advisor at Morehouse College. But on LinkedIn, the man’s employer was listed as 2U. Reviewing the emails, Ducree noticed other clues, including a reference to 2U in the URL of an online portal. There was no reference to 2U in the advisor’s email signature.
“They should be transparent about who they are,” he said. “That transparency is a great thing.”
Morehouse Online is a partnership between Morehouse, the nation’s only historically Black men’s college, and the for-profit educational technology company 2U. When it was announced in February 2021, the program was touted as an affordable degree program aimed at some of the 2.2 million Black men across the country who have earned college credits but not a degree.
But the lack of transparency has been one criticism levelled at companies like 2U, known as online program managers.
Education technology industry leaders say these companies can financially support colleges and universities while providing access to higher education to students underserved by brick-and-mortar programs. Critics say the companies’ business models are confusing to students and could lead to universities and for-profit operators prioritizing enrollment numbers over academic quality.
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Most universities have been slow to change, and teaching online isn’t as simple as hosting a Zoom meeting. Online program managers like 2U help bring in-person classes online, promote the programs and find students.
With fewer students enrolling straight out of high school, more colleges are looking to attract adult learners to fill the gap, making competition tougher.
At the same time, setting up online classes is expensive, and in exchange for incurring the upfront costs, online program managers keep a large portion of the program’s revenue, sometimes for years.
2U is one of the largest and best-known online program managers, and it further expanded with its $800 million acquisition of edX, a nonprofit focused on free online courses, in 2021. Other online program managers include Academic Partnerships and Wiley University Services.
According to a report released by the Government Audit Office in April last year, as of July 2021, at least 550 universities were working with online program managers.
Online program administrators are often criticized for their opaque business practices, and students, like Dukuly, may not realize that their programs are being managed by for-profit companies.
2U CEO and co-founder Christopher “Chip” Pausek said the company has never hidden its role, but told The Wall Street Journal in 2021 that universities wanted the company to “keep a low profile” when it was first launched. Pausek told USA Today that he plans to encourage partners to make 2U employees more clearly identified going forward, but that the decision is up to the universities.
Concerns about transparency also extend to how universities and these companies search for and enroll new students.
Colleges and universities generally cannot pay employees or companies based on the number of students they recruit, part of a federal law designed to prevent unscrupulous actors from enrolling as many students as possible in low-quality academic programs.
Universities can pay a recruitment fee to their online program managers if they provide additional products such as marketing, advertising, or student support services.
Stephanie Hall, a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress, has written critical pieces about online program managers. She argues that when companies are paid a percentage of an academic program’s revenue, they have an incentive to launch programs quickly and “enroll as many students as possible.”
“There’s too much of a corporate relationship between[online program managers]and universities,” Hall said, “so[online program managers]really have the upper hand in driving the creation of programs and determining, ‘How many students are we going to enroll in these programs?'”
Some say online program managers help fill an unmet need. Senior vice president for academic partnerships Adam Arguelles said at a government hearing on online programs that existing federal guidelines allow “low-resource institutions facing serious enrollment and financial challenges” to launch online programs despite lack of funding.
Arguelles said more than 80 percent of the company’s partners are local public universities, and about a quarter serve a significant percentage of minority students.
“These universities pride themselves on providing economic mobility for their students and meeting the most pressing workforce needs of their communities and our nation,” Arguelles said.
But this revenue-sharing model may soon be on the verge of collapse. In February, the U.S. Department of Education updated federal guidelines for online program administrators, expanding the definition of a third party. The move will require universities to disclose information when working with third parties and subject them to further regulation.
The proposed regulations have drawn uproar from some higher education and ed tech leaders. 2U is suing to block the expansion of the definition, arguing that the term has traditionally only applied to parties involved in financial aid. The department is considering revising its guidelines.
It can be difficult to know if an academic program is run in partnership with a third party: Most online program managers list at least some of the companies they partner with on their websites, but the completeness of the lists varies.
USA TODAY asked three major companies — 2U, Academic Partnerships and Wiley University Services — for a list of all the schools they partner with. 2U spokeswoman Kate Welk directed USA TODAY to separate websites for 2U and edX, which together list more than 100 partners.
Deanna Raineri, Wiley’s senior vice president of university strategy and market innovation, declined in a statement to release a list of about 70 of its partners, which include regional public universities and small liberal arts colleges, citing “prior confidentiality.” Caitlin Dugan, director of communications for Academic Partnerships, also declined to disclose the company’s client list.
Here are some other tips for finding third-party-run programs:
◾ Online Program Manager staff may use email addresses that are slightly different from those of the school. In the case of Morehouse, even though the school’s standard domain is morehouse.edu, 2U staff use addresses that end in online.morehouse.edu.
◾ Information about the online program manager may be found on the academic program’s website. For example, many programs run by 2U have the company’s name in small print at the bottom of the webpage. But that’s not always the case. USA TODAY found that some academic programs run in conjunction with Academic Partnerships made no mention of the company’s involvement on the school’s website. Some programs run in partnership with Wiley University Services mentioned the online program manager only in small print in their privacy policies.
◾ Ask. Students can ask employees they interact with during the enrollment process and after enrollment whether they work for the school or a third party.
Many programs run by online program managers require students to provide contact information in web forms before allowing access to explanatory information such as tuition fees and admissions requirements, Hall said, adding that the privacy policies attached to those forms sometimes also contain disclaimers indicating the course is an affiliation with an outside company.
These methods assume that universities and online program managers have an open relationship with each other.
“Students should not have to go through these steps to verify all the facts before applying for admission or enrolling at a university,” Hall said, “Unfortunately, until the Department of Education revise their policy in students’ favor, they have no choice but to do so.”
Ultimately, the online program manager is an intermediary, and the ultimate responsibility for the quality of teaching lies with the university. Students can contact university staff to inquire about course availability and how quickly programs fill up.
Prospective students who wish to take an online course can also find out who will be teaching their class: a tenured or tenure-track professor at the university, or an adjunct instructor brought in specifically to teach the online course.
Students may want to ask questions about how much of the instruction will take place in real time, and how much will be via recorded video or similar static content. Will students have the opportunity to have live discussions with their peers, or will classroom discussions only take place on forum boards?
Students should also consider asking college staff about the graduation and retention rates for their online programs, and if these numbers aren’t available because your program is new, consider finding the college’s on-campus graduation rate through College Scorecard, a consumer guide to federally funded colleges.
Chris Quintana and Tricia L. Nadolny are investigative reporters for USA TODAY. Contact Chris at cquintana@usatoday.com or on Signal at 202-308-9021. Contact Tricia at tnadolny@usatoday.com or on Twitter @TriciaNadolny.
Published June 1, 2023 at 9:51 AM UTC Updated June 1, 2023 at 12:39 PM UTC