Tiny Hilbert College bets big on great online presence

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Arizona State University Global, Colorado State University Global, University of Central Florida Global – these great state universities all offer strong online degree programs, a natural extension of their widely recognized brands, and impressive infrastructure.

Add to this list… Hilbert College Global. In August, the private Franciscan College in a small town in western New York State entered the online education business with an initial offering of 11 degree programs. Hilbert College’s traditional student body of 730 so far exceeds online student numbers, but President Michael Brophy believes that in the years to come, his online program will snowball to serve a much larger number. than the 30 to 50 currently enrolled every eight weeks. term.

Brophy is frank that the decision to launch an ambitious online program was made in large part to create a new source of income and reach a different and larger student body. Hilbert, who now derives about 70 percent of his student body from his original base in western New York City, is facing a shrinking population of local youth interested in a Hilbert education. In 2015, Hilbert nearly merged with neighboring Université Saint-Bonaventure, a move that many said indicated Hilbert faced the same revenue pressures that have plagued so many small colleges in recent years.

“We’re in western New York, and the demographics – like in many parts of the country – are going in the wrong direction,†Brophy said in an interview. “So we have to reach people across the country and maybe around the world. “

Erie County, where Hilbert is located, has remained roughly equal in terms of census population from 2010 to 2019, but the under-18 population in the county is about 2% lower than in the country. .

Ben Kennedy, a Washington-based education consultant, said he didn’t know of any other small private school offering Hilbert-wide online degree programs without the help of an online program manager ( OPM). Maryville University in St. Louis also has a strong online offering of 42 programs – Maryville’s student body has grown from about 4,200 students in total in 2012 to nearly 10,600 today – but it has grown. pressed an OPM to start. OPMs provide instructional design, marketing, and student support services to colleges, usually for a hefty price tag, and are controversial because they are for-profit companies, which critics say don’t always have the best interests of the students in mind.

“I don’t know of a school of this size that offered so many programs at once,†Kennedy said of Hilbert. “Typically there is more of a shortage of resources and priorities as to which programs will be successful, and they’ll launch two, three, four in year one and year two and see how that goes. “

Hilbert College Global launched last June and hosted its first class in August. At $ 295 per credit, that’s much cheaper than the $ 814.50 per credit that students enrolled in five in-person courses per semester will pay.

Brophy said adjunct professors in particular are “jumping into” Hilbert College Global. The college was unable to say how many full professors will be teaching online.

Amy Smith, Chair of the Hilbert College Faculty Senate, said most faculty are in favor of online expansion because “especially given the geographic area we are in, the number of students is growing online. he university age in the region is either stable or declining. , we therefore recognize the need to find new markets.

She said some teachers are less comfortable with online education and simply choose not to participate.

“There are always people for whom online just isn’t their thing,†she said. “Overall, the response is positive from the faculty.”

Even before the pandemic hit in 2020, forcing most colleges to switch to fully online programs for security reasons, Brophy said Hilbert is already planning to launch Hilbert College Global. In early summer 2020, the Brophy team partnered with Ellucian for instructional design and cybersecurity support. Brophy also decided to join Acadeum, a consortium of more than 200 course-sharing institutions, both to attract additional students and take advantage of the consortium’s courses. Acadeum helps colleges share courses for online degree programs and has proven to be a vital network for many colleges entering the online market. Brophy also hired a local company to support Hilbert College Global’s digital marketing efforts.

Brophy said he decided not to partner with an OPM because the only model that made sense with these companies was the revenue sharing option, and Hilbert didn’t want to “leave money on. Table”. He said OPMs were way too expensive, especially since much of the instructional design had already been done by his own teachers, with guidance from Ellucian.

“If a dollar came with an OPM, 60 cents or more would come back to them,†Brophy said.

OPMs are attractive to many colleges that set up programs online because they typically cover upfront costs in exchange for a share of the income. Instead, Brophy relied on funds from the Federal Pandemic Salary Protection Program to pay 85 faculty to tailor courses to the online market during the summer of 2020. The effort has cost more than $ 500,000, Brophy said, but it was funded entirely by federal pandemic relief money. All courses were designed asynchronously, which means information can be shared outside the constraints of time and place between a network of people, as Brophy said he wanted to be able to reach students across the country. .

The Hilbert College campus is sprawling, so students were able to return to campus in the fall of 2020 and stay socially distanced. However, by that time, the college had already put the entire catalog online. Brophy said the experience galvanized staff, helping everyone realize that the institution can do well at Hilbert College Global.

Brophy said one of the most important lessons he learned from creating Hilbert Global was that potential students expect an immediate response. He said that since large online programs such as Arizona State and Southern New Hampshire University respond to new requests immediately, it is imperative that Hilbert be “responsive within minutes, if not seconds.” Since so many non-traditional students are working, he said, many of them cannot access the phone or a chat bot until 11 p.m.

In addition to graduating students that Hilbert is targeting for his part – Brophy acknowledged “the harsh reality of funding the different marketers” to reach them – the college is also pursuing students through Acadeum and reaching out to the most senior high school students. efficient. to complete their online courses.

Among the many quirks of Hilbert’s story: the college’s Franciscan identity is central to its branding, which advertises the school as “online and Franciscanâ€. Brophy said this branding decision was made because he believes the Franciscan identity “sets us apart, and what we do on campus is, of course, what we strive to do online.”

All online students are required to take a course in Franciscan Philosophy, as are traditional campus students. Brophy said the teachers were seriously considering how to convey Franciscan ethics through a computer screen, because “the student understands that we are a Franciscan school when he comes to usâ€.

If Brophy is successful, many more will come.

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