Do UK business schools now need to play catch-up with online education?
Many people have questioned the extent to which the higher education sector has learnt lessons from the overall experience of the pandemic. For some, the sector has simply carried on regardless and reverted to its old ways. I think this view is quite simplistic, but there are certainly lessons that might have been learned that haven't been universally adopted.
One of the clear lessons from the pandemic is that online distance education supports institutional resilience. It can be instrumental when navigating disruptions and unexpected challenges, as seen during the pandemic when it enabled the continuation of education during a global crisis.
Since the pandemic, there has been an increase in the development of online courses and programmes, and many UK higher education institutions (HEIs) have strategically moved into online education. However, it's unclear how many have been motivated by a desire to build resilience. Certainly, some have made moves to develop financial resilience, but that is just one aspect of resilience.
Although we are no longer faced with a global pandemic, UK higher education is currently dealing with serious challenges. Some HEIs are in financial peril, and the sector as a whole faces issues of financial sustainability based on the income it can generate from undergraduate fees.
It's well documented that this situation has led to HEIs increasing the number of international students they recruit, as these students pay higher fees, particularly at the postgraduate taught level. This trend is evident in the 22-23 financial reports of many UK HEIs, with many reporting increased income due to growth in international student numbers.
There was a brief period when this strategy was a workaround (albeit a risky one) for the financial challenges UK HEIs were facing. That was until the UK government intervened, acting like a kind of bad samaritan with steel-toe-capped boots. Measures such as the ban on visas for student dependents are beginning to inflict serious harm on institutions striving to remain financially sustainable.
Business schools facing international enrolment challenges
A recent report published by the Chartered Association of Business Schools (CABS) has highlighted how stark the issue is. It revealed a significant downturn in the recruitment of international students from outside the UK.
The CABS survey discovered that enrolments for the January 2024 intake have declined by 76% annually. This downturn follows a survey from late last year indicating that nearly a third of business schools reported a decrease in postgraduate enrolments of non-EU international students for the autumn 2023 intake. Given that business schools often serve as major revenue generators for HEIs, this declining trend takes on even greater importance.
I’m not going to claim here that having more in the way of online programmes in place would’ve completely addressed this challenge and everything would be rosy. That would be very naive. However, offering online programmes does diversify the educational portfolio, mitigates some risks, and provides an opportunity for those unable to attend on-campus for various reasons to still pursue their education with your institution.
Are UK business schools online education laggards?
Despite business and management being a popular area for online education, particularly for postgraduate education, there are still quite a number of UK HEIs' business schools that haven’t entered the online distance market.
If we just look at the business schools of 24 universities in the Russell Group, there are around 30 online master's programmes or MBAs on offer across these universities. This averages out to just over 1 online postgraduate programme per business school.
This obviously doesn’t tell the full story, as there are many that offer no fully online programmes and others, such as the University of Liverpool, which has a longstanding relationship with online learning, having a significant number of programmes.
Given the popularity and association business and management courses have with online education, it’s striking when a business school has not moved into online education at all yet.
One wonders how many are now regretting not making such a move earlier. On this point, I’m reminded of the words of Phil Hill, who, when asked when universities should invest in online education, replied... 10 years ago.
Is a mindset shift needed?
Different factors have contributed to the hesitation in moving into online education, some of which commonly include faculty resistance and concerns about cannibalising the on-campus offer. Another contributing factor is something that typifies a significant proportion of higher education as a whole: exclusivity and the fear that online education might dilute the brand.
Michael M. Crow, the president of Arizona State University, admirably said that he wants the university to be one "that measures itself by inclusivity, not exclusivity." However, this is not a mantra shared by higher education as a whole.
Business schools grappling with whether and how to enter the online education market is not a new phenomenon. One of the most well-known examples of this is Harvard Business School over 10 years ago, where the situation was presented almost as a battle of philosophies between Michael Porter and Clayton Christensen. Unsurprisingly, the latter was more radical in his approach than the former, and Porter's view that they should essentially not do anything that might undermine their current on-campus offer won out.
It's hard to know for sure, but one wonders if this is the prevailing view in some UK business schools. There's also an estates angle to this, with concerns that the often plusher, more expensively assembled corners of the campus might see lower occupancy.
Who you serve and how you serve them are important questions for HEIs, especially when making moves into online education.
However, the view that online education always means somehow lowering the bar for entry needs to be challenged. Online education can certainly be a powerful means of widening access, but a very narrow view of online student demographics is feeling pretty tired now.
Online education has grown in acceptance, and the stigma that some people still hold towards it does not really reflect modern realities. Similarly, the fear of cannabilsation of on-campus programmes is not always convincing, and there are examples in other disciplinary areas where high-prestige specialised institutions have made smart moves into online education in a way that has enhanced their reputation and made the on-campus experience more attractive,not less.
Arguably the bigger challenge for UK business schools is whether they can step-up to offer the kind of online education experience that is commensurate with their fee levels. Nevertheless, in these challenging times, where international postgraduate enrolments in business schools and universities at large are under pressure due to government policy changes and narratives, online education’s ability to bolster resilience should not be overlooked.
