Why are so many students still failing online?
Rob Jenkins, associate professor of English at Georgia Perimeter College, writes in the Chronicle of Higher Education that it's time colleges really analyze the ups and downs of online education -- and not just blindly use online courses as a cash cow.
Considering the "abysmal" success rate of such courses, he writes, something is way out of whack. What the system needs is an overhaul:
We need to think long and hard about which courses should be taught fully online, and which students belong in online courses. If students and their prospective employers ever begin to suspect that, in our rush to offer everything online, we have oversold and underdelivered, then it's going to be too late for us to have that discussion. Politicians will have it for us.
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