'Virtual
University' Has Quiet Start
Salt Lake City
(AP) - August 23, 1999 - So far, reality
isn't so pretty for the virtual university that opened a year ago amid a lot pomp
and circumstance.
The Western Governors University was heralded as a
landmark online college, and Utah Gov. Mike Leavitt predicted that thousands of
students would be enrolled within a few years.
But
a year after the school opening with an operating budget and startup costs totaling
$13 million, only about 120 students have enrolled in slightly fewer than 130
courses offered over the Internet by various universities.
"It's
very possible that (the publicity) has created an image for it that it will take
some time to fulfill,'' Leavitt said recently. It's just that the WGU faces a
key visit from accreditors next year.
While
about 100 more students have signed up for four unaccredited degrees in the past
four months, officials say it's the concept, not the numbers, that people should
pay attention to.
" We're pioneering here,'' Leavitt said. ``We
haven't succeeded at it yet, but we're clearly the furthest along of anyone who's
attempted it.''
Charlotte Farr, director of distance education and creative
services at the University of Nevada-Las Vegas, isn't so forgiving. She said she'd
have a lot more students with the same funding.
"I'm dumbfounded,''
she said.
Western Governors University was the vision of Leavitt and
former Colorado Gov. Roy Romer. It has 39 higher-learning institutions in 19 states
and Guam offering courses over the Internet. The goal is to provide college courses
to isolated, rural citizens and training to workers in highly technical fields.
Measuring the success of an institution like WGU is difficult, said Leavitt,
because, ``there is no model to hold us up against.''
Maybe not for long.
Michigan Virtual University was launched on Wednesday and Kentucky Commonwealth
Virtual University is expected to go online in the fall. While enrollment may
be low at WGU, educators agree the school has forced traditional universities
to embrace, or at least grudgingly accept, distance learning as a way to remain
competitive.
"It certainly has given a vision to all higher education
in the western United States that there are other ways to get a degree,'' said
Weldon Sleight, an associate vice president at Utah State University, a WGU member.
WGU President Robert Mendenhall said he suspects thousands of students have
used WGU's course catalog to find Internet classes, only to go directly to the
university providing the course to bypass WGU's $30 processing fee.
For
that reason, WGU has abandoned the fee in favor of an agreement under which member
universities share 30 percent of the tuition paid by students signing up through
WGU. In exchange, WGU will market the courses globally.
Leavitt says
it is the degree programs that will make or break WGU.
The governor says
enrollment in ``on track'' for the two-year associate degree programs in general
studies, network administration and electronic manufacturing, and the masters
degree program in learning and technology.
Leavitt expects 300 students
in the degree programs by the end of the year and believes that should be enough
for accreditors to evaluate the university when they visit early next year.
Without accreditation, WGU degrees are of little value. But Leavitt believes
the school will be accredited and enrollment will jump.
It will have
to if WGU is to remain financially viable. Mendenhall says the school needs 3,000
students in its degree programs to break even, a goal he expects to reach in three
years.
The university's annual operating cost is about $4 million. It
has relied so far on high-tech sponsors such as Apple, IBM, Microsoft and America
Online.
"If the overhead doesn't kill them then it has a chance
of succeeding as people become more familiar with the programs,'' said John Dunn,
program manager for independent learning at the University of Colorado in Boulder,
a WGU member. Leavitt argues WGU's costs are slight compared to the $25 million
it takes to construct a single brick-and-mortar classroom building.
And
he compares WGU's early problems to the University of Utah, founded in 1850. The
school's current enrollment is about 25,000 students.
"You know
how many students the University of Utah had its first year?''
Leavitt
answered, ``Twelve.''
