Has the OPM Market Already Imploded?
Liam Knox
October 10, 2024
A new report shows institutions are turning away from beleaguered online program managers en masse. Is it the end of the road for a once-thriving sector?
Colleges’ interest in partnering with outside companies to run their online programs has plummeted, according to newly released data from market researcher Validated Insights.
In 2023, 147 contracts and partnerships with online program managers expired or were terminated, according to the data, the most of any year since 2020 and nearly as many as in the prior three years combined. At the same time, new partnerships are down by 53 percent from 2023 to 2024. In the first quarter of 2024, only eight new OPM contracts were inked, the fewest since before the COVID-19 pandemic whetted institutional appetites for online programming—though there was a slight bump of 21 new partnerships established in the second quarter.
Enthusiasm for OPMs from investors has dried up as well. Total funding for OPMs has dropped by 97 percent since peak interest in early 2021, and venture capital investments in the companies have all but disappeared.
