That Lingering Stigma Over Online Degrees

ON-DEMAND DEGREE FORMATS ATTRACT GEN Y STUDENTS 

The demographic for online education is also changing, with convenience playing a key role.  The first virtual degrees were popular among mid-level businesspeople with families and jobs. These career professionals weren’t keen on relocating, much less going without a salary for two years. That’s changed. Today, the cyber education space is  attracting younger students, often in their 20s, according to Philips. These Gen Y students are opting for digital degrees because the flexibility fits their on-demand lifestyle. “We now live in an I-want-everything-anytime-on-my-own-terms world,” Phillips says.

So if a school’s online degree carries the same gravitas as its bricks-and-mortar program (and it’s more convenient), why are so many students still quitting their jobs and relocating for in-residence programs? Dean Paul Danos of Dartmouth College’s Tuck School of Business offers a straightforward answer: “That classic MBA program is the best experience you can have. It changes your life, builds your network, it gives you options all over the world,” he says. “I’m 100% certain that the residential MBA is the high-water mark of value add in higher education in every way,” he says.

‘DISTANCE IS ONE THING, AND SCALING IS SOMETHING COMPLETELY DIFFERENT’

Still, he does see a place for online education. While Tuck does not offer an online MBA, in 2010 the business school debuted a Master of Health Care Delivery Science program. The degree, similar to Darden’s Executive MBA, blends online learning with in-person coursework. Tuck also goes to great pains to keep the student-to-faculty ratio low and the interaction level high, according to Danos. But not all online and hybrid programs are committed to preserving quality as they grow, and this could hurt the reputation of online education. “Distance learning is one thing, and scaling is something completely different.” Danos believes. “What people have to understand is that actual knowledge is going to be able to be delivered in all kinds of ways, but giving people personal attention? That’s hard to do at scale.” 

The efficacy of online education also depends on the subject matter, according to Bruner. Virtual learning is a “beautiful device” for delivering hard-and-fast knowledge, he says, but it’s less successful for developing soft skills, such as selling, negotiating, and leading teams – all critical abilities in the business world. Online education also falls short in fostering character development, social awareness, and empathy, Bruner adds.

ELITE MBA STUDENTS ARE ‘BUYING THE LEXUS’

Not everyone shares that view, of course. Phillips doesn’t buy it. She contends that students learn just as effectively and are just as satisfied with online education as they are with in-person instruction. “There is no significant difference,” she says. “You’re not going to learn more or better or be more satisfied with learning one way or the other.”

Candidates to elite business schools are completely capable of mastering finance or accounting online as thoroughly as they would at an Ivy League institution, Phillips says. But there’s one thing students are willing to pay thousands of dollars more for: “good old-fashioned, pressing-the-flesh networking.” “It’s a consumer market, and that’s why they’re not going to Southeast Missouri State for $10,000 bucks but instead earning an MBA for $100,000,” contends Phillips.

It’s also true that the very elite schools (e.g. Harvard, Stanford, Wharton, Kellogg and Booth) don’t offer online MBAs. And reputation still matters to these top-tier students and the employers who hire them. “They’re buying the Lexus and they want the leather seats, the in-car bar, the satellite radio – that’s what they’re buying,” Phillips says.

‘HUMAN BEINGS WILL ALWAYS PUT VALUE ON LEARNING TOGETHER’

There’s also growing evidence that employers are less likely to discriminate between online and on-campus MBAs.  “The recruiters who look at our hybrid EMBA really don’t differentiate between the two,” Bruner observes. “I would say the online program, even the hybrids, require a higher level of maturity and determination to make the online components a meaningful and successful learning experience.”

Most education experts would agree that the online MBA has shed much of its stigma. The next battle will be to prove itself in terms of the student experience. But don’t expect online education to replace the traditional MBA anytime soon. The market is big enough for both, according to Danos.

“There are some people who simply want to learn online, plain story, and there are others who really want that deep transformational experience that an in-person MBA can give,” Danos says. “All bets are off 20 to 30 years from now, but my assumption is that human beings will always put value on learning together.”

DON’T MISS: An Online MBA For the Price of a Jeep and Harvard Business School Goes Online