New Study: Third-Party Providers and PCO Units
UPCEA recently collaborated with ed2go on research related to professional, continuing, and online (PCO) education units’ relationships with third-party providers. This study, Perceptions of Third-Party Providers as a Result of the Pandemic, found that PCO units often sought assistance from third-party providers to help expand bandwidth to support existing students, diversify their portfolios, and continually attract new adult learners.
The demand for online learning continues to rise with more and more adult learners seeking out online modalities of instruction. In 2021, there were 92 million registered online learners compared to the pre-pandemic level of 44 million in 2019. Research has shown that when adult learners were asked how remote instruction might impact their plans to enroll, 73% said they were open to it.
And while many institutions may see the associated opportunities of diversifying their portfolio with stackable pathways and increased online programming, some lack the resources or subject-area expertise to capitalize on these opportunities. As a result, some PCO units are turning to third-party content providers to help fill the gap.
Our research found that 61% of PCO units use a third-party provider for course development, content, or materials. Among those that do, the average percentage of PCO unit courses using third-party providers is 31%, with a median of 18%. Eighty-nine percent of respondents that leverage a third-party provider most often do so for non-credit courses, followed by bootcamps (41%), and badges (30%).
Conversely, among respondents not using third-party providers 48% already have internal services/resources, 19% cited cost, and 14% questioned the quality.
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