Experts Debate Graduation Rates for Online Students

Prospective students have a variety of factors to think about when they're choosing their online programs: accreditation, faculty credentials and prestige, among others.

Graduation rates rarely make the top of the list. And experts are divided on whether they should.

The public can be forgiven for associating online education with low completion and graduation rates. Critics of massive open online courses, or MOOCs, have noted that few students who start the courses actually finish them -- though it's debatable how many intended to. And for-profit online schools have come under fire in recent years for high numbers of dropouts, who are at greater risk of defaulting on their student loans.

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But is an online MBA candidate or online bachelor's student any less likely to finish a degree than his on-campus counterpart with the exact same background and experience? It depends who you ask.

There has been little national research comparing completion rates for online and on-campus college and graduate programs, says Peter Shea, associate provost for online learning and an education professor at University of Albany--SUNY. Much of the research focuses on community colleges, and even there, the research is divided.

Shea's research has found that community college students across the country tend to have a higher chance of finishing their online courses. But a paper by the Community College Research Center at Columbia University's Teachers College that looked at two state systems found otherwise.

The data that does exist on a wider scope suggests that completion rates for online students may be lower, but not much lower, says Russell Poulin, deputy director of research and analysis for WCET, an organization that advocates for effective technology use in higher education.

While many believe that there is a huge difference between online and on-campus completion rates, his research suggests the difference is slight. Based on a survey completed by more than 200 North American school officials in 2013, Poulin found that course completion rates averaged three to five percent better for on-campus courses than for online courses.

While it may be true that online students as a whole don't finish their degrees as quickly as on-campus students, that may be less about the online mode of instruction than about the kinds of students who sign up for virtual degrees, says Jeff Seaman, co-director of the Babson Survey Research Group, which tracks online learning trends.

Most online students are nontraditional learners -- students who are juggling work, school and family commitments. It would make sense that life sometimes would get in the way of graduation for these students, he says.

"How do you treat the 'life happens' reason for dropping out (need to spend more time at work, family needs, etc.)?" he wrote in an email. "The online student is more likely to have these types of events -- which is independent of the course delivery method."

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Brian Casey is one of those nontraditional students. A senior airman in the Air Force, he started his online bachelor's degree at Northwestern State University of Louisiana in the spring of 2013.

He didn't think much about graduation rates when he was looking at online programs -- he just wanted a reputable school with a business administration bachelor's degree he could pursue on deployment. Casey hopes to finish in three or four years, which is when he'll run out of some military scholarships.

"I want to get this done in my first enlistment," he says. "I'm going to do it."

That may be a challenge. According to U.S. News data, only 10 percent of students who entered the online bachelor's program at Northwestern State in 2007 graduated in three years. By the end of six years, 42 percent of those students had graduated.

Overall, only 17 percent of students who entered any of the 69 online bachelor's programs that reported these specific data to U.S. News graduated in three years, while just 35 percent graduated within six. There were only 16 programs that reported 50 percent or more of students who started in 2007 had graduated in three years, and 41 that reported the same proportion had graduated in six.

Students interested in finding graduation rates for their prospective online program might be frustrated, since the data are hard to come by, experts say.

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But students have other ways of gauging whether they will be able to succeed, including soul-searching.

"Administrators and faculty all agree that students need more discipline to succeed in an online course than in a face-to-face ones," says Seaman. "If you don't have this ability, then you are more likely to drop out."

Students can also take steps to determine whether an institution is setting them up for success, says Michael D. Abbiatti, WCET executive director.

They should ask their friends about their experience, he says, and poll school officials about mentors, counseling services and 24-hour tech support. Before they sign up, they should have a good idea of what they're getting into, he says.

"It's so important that the student understands what it means to learn electronically," he says. "The students who understand the benefits and pitfalls of learning electronically will not drop out."

Searching for an online program? Get our complete rankings of Top Online Education Programs.

Devon Haynie is an education reporter at U.S. News, covering online education. You can follow her on Twitter or email her at dhaynie@usnews.com.