EDUCATION Ultimately, it won’t be either the supporters’
a Boiler program has begun to contribute meaningfully to the steady reduction in student debt, replacing nearly $6 million that would otherwise have been borrowed by undergraduates. Proving that innovation is not the exclusive province of scientists and engineers, our College of Liberal Arts debuted its “Degree in 3” initiative, offering to all future students the chance to graduate in three years. Those who seize this opportunity will get a year’s head start on career and life, earn an extra year of income, and save thousands of dollars in so doing. PURDUE GLOBAL Of the many unusual actions Purdue has taken in recent years, none has attracted more attention than our announcement last March that we would purchase, for $1, the online Kaplan University. As both a higher education and business story, the move became national news from its first day and has remained a topic of discussion ever since. Although we have stated our reasons for the move many times, they bear repeating as Purdue Global, the new permanent name of the acquisition, nears its launch this spring. First, in this era, we recognize that we cannot fulfill Purdue’s land-grant mission, to bring higher ed opportunities to the widest possible audience, if we stop at age 22. Tens of millions of adult Americans started but never finished college. Neither they as individuals, nor our society in a global, knowledge-driven economy, can realize their potential if they go no further in enhancing their education and skills.
Second, after years of attempts, an honest assessment told us that Purdue was far behind many peers, to say nothing of the schools that specialize or are exclusively online, in the techniques and technologies that lead to effective distance learning. We have a world-class faculty, many of whom are eager to extend their teaching beyond campus to new audiences. What we do not have is a competitive means of delivering that content. The chance to acquire overnight that delivery competence was an opportunity not to be missed. As one longtime leader in the online education field told me, “You were 15 years behind. You caught up in one day.” Any major change generates debate and disagreement. Some members of the Purdue community have raised questions about the wisdom or the propriety of the Purdue Global acquisition. Ultimately, 10% of our tenured or tenure-track faculty and 6% of all our faculty and lecturers signed a petition challenging the idea. Their opposition has been criticized as “arrogance not based in fact” or as one member of the Purdue University Senate put it as “academic snobbery.” But for the most part, their concerns have been natural and appropriate, and clearly sincere, reflecting the very same issues the Board of Trustees examined before agreeing to the transaction. Some misinformation (in some cases, disinformation) to the contrary, we found no reasons for concern about either the integrity
or the critics’ forecasts that matter, but rather the results.
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