OT-Anyone why UA doesn't do more with online degree promotion/additional degrees offered?

I'm aware UA has some online degrees. I get the sense though that there could be more offered and rarely do I see any marketing/advertising for online degrees for UA.

ASU offers more than 100 online degrees.

I agree being on campus is/was (for me anyway) a really great experience but not everyone can do that. Some people can’t afford to live on campus. Some people have small kids. Some people have jobs/careers.

Are you talking about undergraduate or graduate education?

Focusing just on undergrad: since the mid-2000s, the primary strategy has been to grow out-of-state, on-campus enrollment to increase revenue, and that approach has been highly successful. However, there are natural capacity limits. At the same time, the college-going population in Alabama is fluctuating overall. While more out-of-state students are relocating to Alabama before starting college—making the in-state population appear larger—the reality is that it’s actually declining. To sustain the current model, the institution will need to rely increasingly on out-of-state enrollment. At some point, there likely needs to be a greater emphasis on academic research to balance things out, but with research funding potentially tightening due to political headwinds, other options may need to be explored.

As for expanding undergraduate online programs at a well-established, residential institution, it’s far more challenging than it sounds. Of the three schools mentioned, Arizona State is the closest comparison—and they’re essentially a more extreme version of this model. Historically, ASU has been known for massive enrollment growth and chronic undergraduate housing shortages. It’s possible they’ve reached the limits of what they can do on campus and are now turning to online expansion as the next pathway. That said, framing online growth as a response to exhausting a profitable residential model doesn’t strike me as an ideal position. If you’re willing to invest heavily and plan carefully, it might work, but it carries significant risk. In my view, ASU has never had a particularly strong institutional identity beyond being a party school; while that has drawbacks, it also means they don’t face the same cultural or alumni pushback that schools with more deeply rooted identities might encounter.

Alabama, by contrast, is built around the undergraduate campus experience—that is the school’s identity—so any major push toward online undergrad programs would almost certainly generate resistance. We’ve discussed before the challenges of recruiting and retaining faculty for on-campus roles; scaling online education would either require significantly expanding the faculty base or increasing existing faculty workloads, neither of which is likely to be well received. Additionally, Alabama currently lacks the infrastructure and student support systems geared toward non-traditional students. Building those resources presents a classic chicken-and-egg problem, and the funding for robust online infrastructure probably isn’t available right now. I’m also unsure how much of the online learning infrastructure remained after COVID, as many schools in conservative states significantly rolled back their LMS investments.

There’s also the risk of cannibalizing out-of-state, residential enrollment by shifting students into online programs, which could actually reduce net revenue. Since Alabama is neither a small institution like Liberty (relatively small compared to major state flagships), have a long standing online program like Purdue global nor completely at capacity like ASU, the financial impact could be negative. Retention is another major concern—when I was there, stop-outs were the biggest issue, and online programs tend to increase that risk, though it’s possible those dynamics have shifted since then.

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I know that at the graduate level there has been pushback from faculty who think online programs aren’t prestigious or lessen the value of a degree. Not saying they are right or wrong, but it is something I know firsthand.

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I've had discussions with the business administration concerning the online MBA program. I believe UA business school originally intended for the MBA program to be residency because of the "prestige" factor. However, after seeing many people go to less reputable business schools like UNA or AU for their MBA, I think they are finally seeing that their old business strategy needs revamping. I was told Dean Palan was going to make an announcement that they were moving the MBA program to an online option, but that was almost two years ago and I haven't heard anything recently. I will reach out to my business school contacts to see what the holdup is. I'm tired of seeing UA alumni that started work after college and decided to go back to get a Master's only to go to AU. Makes my blood boil

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I know that at the graduate level there has been pushback from faculty who think online programs aren’t prestigious or lessen the value of a degree. Not saying they are right or wrong, but it is something I know firsthand.

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I tend to agree, even if that's my preconceived bias, but I just don't think the online degree experience is comparable. Online learning, at all levels, during covid seems to give credence to that based on subsequent studies. Of course, even if you're on campus you probably still take an online only course at some point. The online degree just still has a stigma to me...University of Phoenix or Southern New Hampshire are the first things that come to mind when I hear "online degree."

That age group is too young to bother with college. Imo

I would probably get my MBA finally if UA had a better online program. The executive MBA deal is just too obtrusive with your work and home life to do.

I'm telling you, there is a mentality within the upper reaches of the UA administration that their value add is the in-person/on-campus experience. And that is fine for the programs mostly serving high school graduates but it is silly that really only the College of Education seems to understand that they need to serve their graduate programs online because it is primarily professional development to advance the student's already-existing career.

Not really answering the question but I recall from my time at UA that we were strongly discouraged from taking an online class if we were physically in Tuscaloosa. There were a ton of them aimed primarily at active duty military.