09-19-2008, 04:58 AM
Looking at the posts it appears that not many people at the schools play an active role in promoting the "truth" about their institutions. As such, you may be interested in hearing from the CEO of Andrew Jackson University (me). My name is Joseph Schmoke; Don Kassner is AJU's President & COO. Don and I knew there would be lots of controversy when we intruduced our sponsored "zero tuition" program in what we thought was a controlled beta test in July. We thought we'd just put it out to a limited number of people and let them tell us what they liked, didn't like - or were suspicious of - in the program. To our surprise, one of the beta test participants was a degreeinfo forum member and spread the word to his forum buddies and the word snuck out. Don and I sat back and watched the interplay, the guesswork and detective work and were satisfied that most of the folks actually "got" what we were doing. But a few behind-the-scenes issues were still misunderstood - as they are in the preceding posts - so I thought I'd clear things up with the inside information.
We had just riased our tuition (again) and we were not happy to see that everyone else was raising their tuition too; we were doing it because we were lower than most and wanted to charge what similar schools were charging. But then we met with some people who presented an idea that caught our attention: create a marketing partnership with "sponsors" who would recruit students for us and pay us a portion of the revenue they were generating from online advertising. (Think social networks...) We knew that idea wouldn't fly economically, but Don though he'd take a close look at our actual costs and see how much we had to charge for tuition in order to meet our costs. As part of his study he looked at what it cost us to recruit a student. These costs consisted of advertising and lead generation, with leads generated from aggregators (i.e., collegeUSA, etc.) costing between $35 and $50 each while converting to enrollments at between 2%-4%. That cost was enormous. (A recent Merrill Lynch report pegged recruiting costs at between $1400 and $2700 per student.) We thought that, if we could eliminate this tremendous cost we could pass the savings on the students, and began formulating a plan.
Don called me one night and asked what I thought about eliminating tuition. I told him we weren't a charity and had no endowment to draw from, but he snickered and said he'd like to try charging fees instead of tuition. The fees would consist of standard application ($75) and enrollment ($125) fees, plus an "administrative" of about $350 for undergraduates and $400 for graduate students, plus a proctoring fee of $30 per course. The administrative fee covered our cost to provide three (grad) to four (undergrad) classes (three-credit-hour classes) as the instructors wouldn't work for free. So we decided to test it and the beta program kicked off in July. You've seen what's happened since then...
Our "partners" or "sponsors" don't pay us anything; we don't pay them anything. What happens is the sponsors gain new members, customers, followers, etc., at no charge while we obtain leads for potential enrollments at no cost. Everyone benefits, especially the students.
This is not a come-on; there is no "catch"; costs won't change mid-program; the quality of courses and instructors match up against anything and anyone; student services and technical services don't change for the worse; and in the meantime Andrew Jackson University sets a new bar for the cost for quality, accredited degree programs.
One last comment, and maybe the best part yet: for the $350 "admin fee" an undergraduate student can take as many as four courses per semester, and for $400 a grad student can take three courses. (Why the difference? We pay instructors who have terminal degrees - only an instructor with a doctorate can teach grad students - more than those with master degrees.) Proctoring costs are $30 per course, so add that too. But once a student is enrolled the application and enrollment fees disappear.
Why are we doing this? Two basic reasons: beause we approach the business of education from an entrepreneurial point of view; and because we want colleges and universities to think about how they can reduce students' costs rather than how they can inflate them. It's time somebody does that, isn't it?
Some other things we're doing that might interest you:
We introduced web cam proctoring several months ago - I was the guinea pig as I'm not an expert in technology (if Joe can do it anyone can...) - and students love it. No hunting for a snippy proctor anymore; just take the test in front of your computer.
Toturing service is now offered through a highly qualified third party. (Yes, it costs extra, but if you need it it's worth it.)
And we're about to release a technical assist service that allows our technologist to remotely control a student's computer & cursor to walk them through what might be an otherwise challenging first stab at online education. (Yes, I'll be the guinea pig for this too.)
In conclusion, we're for real, we don't want to mislead anyone, the economics are simple - and timely, we think - and our goal is to provide the highest quality education and the best service at the lowest cost.
We had just riased our tuition (again) and we were not happy to see that everyone else was raising their tuition too; we were doing it because we were lower than most and wanted to charge what similar schools were charging. But then we met with some people who presented an idea that caught our attention: create a marketing partnership with "sponsors" who would recruit students for us and pay us a portion of the revenue they were generating from online advertising. (Think social networks...) We knew that idea wouldn't fly economically, but Don though he'd take a close look at our actual costs and see how much we had to charge for tuition in order to meet our costs. As part of his study he looked at what it cost us to recruit a student. These costs consisted of advertising and lead generation, with leads generated from aggregators (i.e., collegeUSA, etc.) costing between $35 and $50 each while converting to enrollments at between 2%-4%. That cost was enormous. (A recent Merrill Lynch report pegged recruiting costs at between $1400 and $2700 per student.) We thought that, if we could eliminate this tremendous cost we could pass the savings on the students, and began formulating a plan.
Don called me one night and asked what I thought about eliminating tuition. I told him we weren't a charity and had no endowment to draw from, but he snickered and said he'd like to try charging fees instead of tuition. The fees would consist of standard application ($75) and enrollment ($125) fees, plus an "administrative" of about $350 for undergraduates and $400 for graduate students, plus a proctoring fee of $30 per course. The administrative fee covered our cost to provide three (grad) to four (undergrad) classes (three-credit-hour classes) as the instructors wouldn't work for free. So we decided to test it and the beta program kicked off in July. You've seen what's happened since then...
Our "partners" or "sponsors" don't pay us anything; we don't pay them anything. What happens is the sponsors gain new members, customers, followers, etc., at no charge while we obtain leads for potential enrollments at no cost. Everyone benefits, especially the students.
This is not a come-on; there is no "catch"; costs won't change mid-program; the quality of courses and instructors match up against anything and anyone; student services and technical services don't change for the worse; and in the meantime Andrew Jackson University sets a new bar for the cost for quality, accredited degree programs.
One last comment, and maybe the best part yet: for the $350 "admin fee" an undergraduate student can take as many as four courses per semester, and for $400 a grad student can take three courses. (Why the difference? We pay instructors who have terminal degrees - only an instructor with a doctorate can teach grad students - more than those with master degrees.) Proctoring costs are $30 per course, so add that too. But once a student is enrolled the application and enrollment fees disappear.
Why are we doing this? Two basic reasons: beause we approach the business of education from an entrepreneurial point of view; and because we want colleges and universities to think about how they can reduce students' costs rather than how they can inflate them. It's time somebody does that, isn't it?
Some other things we're doing that might interest you:
We introduced web cam proctoring several months ago - I was the guinea pig as I'm not an expert in technology (if Joe can do it anyone can...) - and students love it. No hunting for a snippy proctor anymore; just take the test in front of your computer.
Toturing service is now offered through a highly qualified third party. (Yes, it costs extra, but if you need it it's worth it.)
And we're about to release a technical assist service that allows our technologist to remotely control a student's computer & cursor to walk them through what might be an otherwise challenging first stab at online education. (Yes, I'll be the guinea pig for this too.)
In conclusion, we're for real, we don't want to mislead anyone, the economics are simple - and timely, we think - and our goal is to provide the highest quality education and the best service at the lowest cost.