Feeling the Heat Yet?

A recent report on a shift in strategy by OPM 2U has stirred thinking on the future of professional school programs, notably masters degree programs, in the evolving distance learning landscape. 2U is revising its estimates of program growth and scaling down the size of new programs with its partners in the face of what it views as increasing competition as more and more colleges initiate online programs. 2U has begun to diversify its offerings by adding shorter term programs and boot camps while maintaining degree programs with its college and university partners.

Writing in The Edge Newsletter about The End of the Masters Degree as We’ve Known It, Goldie Blumenstyk suggests that student demand is shifting away from traditional masters programs toward shorter more modular offerings that might be taken at various points in the development of a career. Enrollment patterns will likely differ for different fields with some retaining the masters degree as the essential credential and others incorporating more alternatives.

This particular shift is related to what appears to be a larger set of changes impacting the professions due to technological, economic, and social changes. Although some institutions are feeling the effects of changing student preferences for graduate education more than others, as the nature of professional work and the sequence of individual careers change, a very substantial redesign of professional graduate education or alternatives to it, is likely to be necessary. Forward looking institutions should be starting to re-think professional education now.