Phil Hill & Glenda Morgan
October 9, 2024
A couple of days ago, Inside Higher Ed published an article titled “Online Learners Earned Fewer Degrees Than Their Peers During For-Profit College Boom,” based on what they referred to as a “a report published last week by Third Way, a center-left think tank.” The report described lower completion rates among online learners compared to on-campus students.
These two pieces might lead you to believe that there is new research on the impact of online learning on student completion rates. If that’s your assumption, you would be mistaken.
There is no new research; rather, this is an illustration of how the Arnold Ventures-funded coalition operates (see this post for background). They publish a piece of research, promote it repeatedly with the help of a sometimes overly credulous trade press—Inside Higher Ed in this case—all in an effort to sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt around online learning.
