“The English never draw a line without blurring it.” — Winston Churchill
One of the pioneers of distance learning — one of our forefathers, if you will — is the Open University in the UK. Founded forty years ago, it has grown over the years into being one of the success stories of distance learning, now with nearly 170,000 students. They've gone from being considered a questionable experiment to being one of the best respected universities in Britain.
Despite this, most Americans have never heard of it, because they limited their enrollment to those in the UK, and then to those elsewhere in Europe. So when my friend Gavin Baker asked me about one of their Master's degree programs, I responded that sure it was probably a great program, but alas, as an American he wouldn't be able to enroll in it.
Ah, but it seems that in this case what I know wasn't so. The program in question is a Master's degree in Society and Science and it requires three courses, one that is a project and two others from a list of three. Gavin pointed out that the site has a list of acceptable countries for applicants, and that the U.S. is on it. And he's right, the list of courses available to Americans includes all four of the ones that pertain to this degree, and many more besides. Moreover, at three courses required and £2000 per course, the total fees are six thousand pounds, a shade more than ten thousand dollars at today's exchange rate. (Note that their courses are very comprehensive, about the equivalent of four courses at most U.S. universities.) For a Master's degree from a world class university that's a very good deal.
So now I'm intrigued. The list of courses available to Americans was much longer than I expected, and evidently there's been a change in the "Yankee go home" attitude that the Open University used to have. They attempted to enter the U.S. market years ago with a failed "Open University of the United States" that was a separate institution based in the U.S., only to find that this market was a tough nut to crack. With their excellent reputation and reasonable tuition rate, however, it could very well be that this renewed willingness to serve American students could now position them as a strong new competitor in the American distance learning marketplace, a position that eluded them last time around.
Next up, it seems that distance learners aren't a bunch of cheaters after all.