The End of OPMs

[spork]

In this case, the bankruptcy of 2U. MIT got a windfall, 2U got suckered (haha):

https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2024/7/27/2u-bankruptcy-harvard-mit-edx/.

[Parasaurolophus]

I didn't know edX had been bought. Buying it three years ago, when everyone else has learned to deliver online courses seems... like a mistake? I'd like to hear why they thought it was a good idea.

[simpleSimon]

Good riddance.

[dismalist]

OPM vs in-house is a classic make-or-buy decision. It seemed to me that the OPM I was exposed to adopted a standardized way of recruiting students, and soft bamboozling them once admitted. This is what the university wanted. I suppose the buzz word was retention. The University learned, and is now making, not buying.

OPM is a symptom, not a problem sui generis. But, speaking with the immortal film When Harry Met Sally, "that symptom is fucking my wife".

As for the Crimson article, edX is not dead. The bankruptcy is allowing the firm to survive, which is what Chapter 11 is all about. Debts have been cut in half and a cash injection is coming. The smart money apparently thinks money is still to be made in them 'thar hills. 

[ciao_yall]

Private equity bought Follet, who is probably running your bookstore operations.

And... now they are not paying their commissions. Because "cash flow issues."

Gee, with the rise in ZTC and all the online sellers of used/old edition books, College bookstores would make a good business model?

Argh.

[spork]

Campus bookstores make most of their money on everything other than books. The textbooks are just a lure to bring in customers.

OPMs, or at least many of them, relied to a large degree on revenue sharing contracts.

[Hibush]

It has been long enough that EdX should have found a niche. My school invested in the partnership early. Six MOOCs were developed and run as sessions. Only one continued after the initial one or two sessions. It is still there today. The platform is also used for one in-house professional-development courses.

Despite a great diversity of learning audiences, besides our paying undergraduates, the MOOC model has not turned out the be a useful vehicle. Since the initial development of those six courses was funded by the provost, we know that a three-credit MOOC of acceptable quality costs about $50,000 to develop, in addition to the instructor's time for course prep.