Demand for remote degree programmes has surged in the past decade, and especially since the Covid-19 pandemic normalised the online classroom. But for students in many exclusively online programmes, eight-year completion rates often fall below 50 per cent, according to data on outcome measures from the Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System.
At Southern New Hampshire University, one of the largest and oldest online institutions in the country, only 36 per cent of students who enrolled in 2015 graduated in eight years. At Grand Canyon University, four times as many students attend online as in person – 100,000 compared with 25,000 at the Phoenix campus this autumn. But only 46 per cent of the nearly 26,000 online and in-person students who enrolled in 2015 had earned a degree by 2023, according to IPEDS data.
Liberty University, a private Christian college, was an early adopter of remote degree programmes; in 2022, 15,500 students enrolled at the Lynchburg, Virginia, campus while 115,000 enrolled in online courses. But the IPEDS data shows that only 42 per cent of all Liberty students who entered in 2015 received an award or degree after eight years.
Part-time, first-time students in online programmes have an even harder time achieving completion. At both SNHU and Grand Canyon, only 14 per cent of that population in the IPEDS cohort earned an award after eight years. At Liberty, 19 per cent did.
The average eight-year national completion rate for all students is about 65 per cent, according to a December report from the National Student Clearinghouse.
Low completion rates have always plagued online-only learners, but numbers below 50 per cent are usually associated with for-profit institutions. Some of those have even worse outcomes; at the University of Phoenix, for instance, only 26 per cent of students graduate in eight years. But SNHU and Liberty are non-profits, as are most of the other large online universities included in Inside Higher Ed’s analysis. Grand Canyon went for-profit in 2004 but regained its non-profit status in 2018 despite a lengthy court battle that ultimately vindicated the decision in November.
Michael Itzkowitz, co-founder and president of the higher education consulting group HEA, said that as distance learning continues to grow in popularity for all students, completion rates are an important barometer of their value and, in his view, an increasingly clear signal that better oversight is needed.
“A lot of the largest institutions in the country are having trouble with completion, especially those that provide more online or flexible options,” he said. “We need to ensure we don’t jeopardise quality when we offer alternative delivery methods.”
The devil’s in the data
Siobhan Lopez, director of media relations at Southern New Hampshire, initially said the IPEDS data included only first-time, full-time students and thus reflected just 5 per cent of the university’s cohort. Bob Romantic, a spokesperson for Grand Canyon University, at first said he understood the data the same way. Both said that made it difficult to “compare apples to apples” when addressing completion rates for online universities with majority part-time student bodies.
Accurate information on completion rates at online programmes – along with important related factors such as spending on student supports – is scarce. The US Education Department called for more mandated data collection from online programmes last July, over the protests of some institutions.
But the new IPEDS data on outcome measures, which is self-reported by institutions, is more inclusive and accounts for part-time and transfer students, who are more heavily represented at online institutions than the full-time, first-time students included in the federal College Scorecard.
Advice on student success in higher education
Mr Itzkowitz, a self-described “data nerd” who compiled the outcome measurement numbers in a LinkedIn post in December, said that’s part of what makes the numbers compelling: they render the traditional defence moot.
“This newer, comprehensive data does a good job of capturing all students, both those that attend in person and those who attend online,” Mr Itzkowitz said. Inside Higher Ed independently verified and analysed the IPEDS data for this story.
After clarifying that the data included part-time students, Ms Lopez said that there were many other extenuating circumstances behind SNHU’s low completion rates. The institution “has historically served those left behind by traditional higher education models”, she said, noting that 74 per cent of the cohort in the IPEDS data were enrolled part-time – a constituency she pointed out are less than half as likely to graduate in eight years as their full-time peers at any institution.
Mr Romantic said that GCU’s low completion rate for the 2015 cohort was due in part to its status at the time as a for-profit.
“The quality of the university’s students has continued to strengthen as the brand of the university has grown and thus we expect to see a continued increase in graduation rates,” he said.
Mr Romantic added that institutions’ definitions of student status were “wildly inconsistent”, with some marking online students as full-time and others, like GCU, designating all of them as part-time. He added that graduation rates are thus a less accurate reflection of programme value than they may seem.
“Rather than trying to finesse the reporting system in higher education to artificially produce better outcomes, GCU puts students first,” he said.
Mr Itzkowitz said that while completion can be a bigger challenge for part-time students, finishing college in eight years should be the norm, not the exception, and the IPEDS data raises important questions about accountability for large online universities.
“The question now becomes, should we expect or deem it OK for online programmes to show much lower completion rates for the students they enrol?” he said.
Sacrificing support for scale
The popularity of exclusively online programmes has been on the rise for years. In 2008, only 3.9 per cent of students were enrolled in online-only pathways. By 2019, that number had jumped to about 23 per cent, according to data from the National Postsecondary Student Aid Study; in 2022-23, it reached 26 per cent.
Ms Lopez and Mr Romantic said that many of the students turning to distance-only degree programmes are already statistically less likely to graduate – low-income students, and those with jobs or caretaking responsibilities. Ms Lopez said that 55 per cent of the 2015-16 SNHU cohort included in the IPEDS data were Pell Grant recipients.
“Many of the learners SNHU serves face unique challenges including full-time jobs, family responsibilities like raising children or caring for loved ones, and other commitments while pursuing their degree part-time,” she said. “These factors often impact their pace or otherwise extend the time it takes for many of our learners to graduate.”
Justin Ortagus, director of the Institute of Higher Education at the University of Florida and a professor of higher education administration and policy, co-authored a study in 2023 on low completion rates in online degree programmes. He said there’s some validity to Ms Lopez’s point that the types of students online universities serve are already statistically less likely to graduate owing to extenuating financial and social circumstances. And part-time, remote-only programmes can offer the flexibility – and often, the affordability – that these students need.
But he said those students’ disproportionate representation in online programmes is not an excuse for low-quality curricula and meagre support services that leave vulnerable students paying for a credential they may never earn.
“There’s a lot of competition right now for students on the margins of higher education among exclusively online programmes,” Professor Ortagus said – which can mean more spending on marketing and recruitment than on instruction and support.
Online programmes, unlike brick-and-mortar ones, also have few limits to their growth potential. But the more students they enrol, the harder it is to support them, Professor Ortagus said, leading many students to rely on “self-directed learning practices” that can be even more difficult for the busy, often underprepared populations part-time distance programmes serve.
“I don’t think there’s this conference of people twisting their moustaches and trying to keep students from completing their degrees. But I genuinely think whenever you are trying to enrol as many students as possible, you risk dipping into suboptimal teaching and learning practices,” he said. “Online students can feel like they’re on an island, teaching themselves confusing concepts, and that’s not an optimal pathway to completion.”
Mr Itzkowitz said that as demographic declines and crises of confidence threaten to undermine college enrolments, the relatively low-cost growth potential of online degree programmes was increasingly appealing. More institutions are investing in distance education, from community colleges to large research universities.
But the “subpar” completion rates for such programmes should give institutions expanding into that space pause, or at least encourage a more thoughtful approach, he said.
“When you’re dealing with billions of dollars and students’ futures,” he said, “you shouldn’t be experimenting”.
This is an edited version of a story that first appeared on Inside Higher Ed.
