See below for the full set of all blogs hosted by the association.

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Perspectives on Online and Professional Education
from UPCEA’s Research and Consulting Experts

A Reflection on My Predictions: What it Means for 2025 and Beyond

November 25, 2024

Higher education is facing its greatest challenge in decades. Our field may be at a transformational cusp where the transactional currency for education may shift from credits to competency, competency dictated by new, to-be-determined factors, shaped by our evolving economy, as well as the political landscape. Historically, and for the era, 120-credits was a fairly…

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Balancing Act: How Higher Education Can Thrive in a Resource-Constrained World

November 15, 2024

Higher education institutions, particularly those with online and professional continuing education (PCE) units, are increasingly tasked with balancing financial sustainability and operational efficiency in a resource-constrained environment. As student demographics shift and competition intensifies, institutions are looking for innovative ways to diversify their revenue streams while optimizing operations – this is no easy task. The…

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Unique biweekly insights and news review from Ray Schroeder, Senior Fellow at UPCEA

Winds of Change in Higher Ed to Become a Hurricane in 2025

November 21, 2024

A number of factors are converging to create a huge storm of change in higher education this coming year. Generative AI (GenAI) advances, massive federal policy shifts, broad societal economic changes, and the demographic cliff combine to create uncertainty today and change tomorrow. What are the changes we can predict today, and how can we…

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Here Come the AI Agents!

November 7, 2024

Anthropic last month took the lead in providing early access to basic AI agents for the masses. This is a huge leap forward from the chatbots that have dominated early Generative AI (GenAI) up until today. Anthropic offers the new function that enables its Sonnet version to control your computer. “Claude 3.5 Sonnet is the…

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Your one-stop shop for the latest Association happenings, policy updates, plus thoughts from the desk of CEO Bob Hansen.

Election Outcomes: Proposed Distance Ed Rules and Incentive Compensation Changes Unlikely to Proceed | Policy Matters (November 2024)

Major Updates Recently Proposed Distance Education Regulations, Changes to Third-Party Servicers, Incentive Compensation, Are Unlikely to Move Forward The Department of Education’s recent negotiated rulemaking session aimed to revise key regulations, including those related to distance education. However, consensus among stakeholders wasn’t reached, leaving the Department to decide on proposed language. While some, like distance…

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UPCEA Releases Groundbreaking Research Report on Online Education in Higher Education

New annual study provides key benchmarks, insights and recommendations for advancing online learning.   WASHINGTON (Nov. 19, 2024) – UPCEA, the online and professional education association, today announced the release of a new research report, “Benchmarking Online Enterprises: Insights into Structures, Strategies, and Financial Models in Higher Education.” The report, based on a comprehensive survey…

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Using Technology to Transform Higher Education

The rapid evolution of technology is reshaping industries across the globe, and higher education is no exception. According to a 2023 survey by Inside Higher Ed, 73% of higher education institutions’ chief information officers believe digital transformation is crucial to their success in the next five years. As colleges and universities face a shifting landscape—characterized…

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A new direction for the Distance Teaching and Learning Conference

Over the last three years, UPCEA engaged in an innovative partnership with the University of Wisconsin–Madison to enable the latter’s Distance Teaching and Learning (DT&L) conference to continue under UPCEA’s leadership. The partnership’s goals included making this valuable event for the distance learning community more sustainable and accessible to online practitioners focused on teaching and…

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Musings on trends and updates from UPCEA CEO Bob Hansen.

A new direction for the Distance Teaching and Learning Conference

November 7, 2024

Over the last three years, UPCEA engaged in an innovative partnership with the University of Wisconsin–Madison to enable the latter’s Distance Teaching and Learning (DT&L) conference to continue under UPCEA’s leadership. The partnership’s goals included making this valuable event for the distance learning community more sustainable and accessible to online practitioners focused on teaching and…

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Beyond Degrees: How Credential Innovation is Closing the Gap for 42 Million Learners

October 24, 2024

A Movement, Not Just a Community Convergence is emerging as the place where the credential innovation community for higher ed comes together. But more than a community, it’s a movement. Not a movement to make degrees less valuable, let alone obsolete. Rather, it’s a movement to complement degrees by meeting the needs of those for…

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Valuable insights from UPCEA's trusted corporate partners.

Are Big Data and Data Science a Threat to Higher Education?

March 15, 2019

It was encouraging to read an UPCEA blog post from August 2018 in which Mindmax CEO Lee Maxey critiqued our data and knowledge environment.  Mr. Maxey’s description of how we’re drowning in data was on point; the sheer mass of analytics, metrics and all things measuring is indeed a problem.  With Big Data, comes Data…

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The Benefit of Higher Education Being Late to Technology-Based Learning

September 14, 2018

In his recent book Thank You for Being Late, Thomas Friedman analyzes why the world seems to be accelerating away from us at a remarkable pace. His explanation: Humans are adaptable, but no generation has experienced technology, globalization and climate change at the rate we are seeing. As an example, Friedman suggests that if advances…

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