Experience Working with Academic Partners?

[larryc]

I have a question and a caution about a higher ed consulting firm, Academic Partners.

My university signed up with AP to help develop online programs. The way it works is that AP helps you figure out what programs might be viable online, works with faculty to build out the program and the courses, and then recruits students to fill the classes. For these efforts they take HALF the tuition straight off the top, even after you pay them a fee (for working with us on our online history MA we are paying them like $100k).

AP markets their services to administrators rather than faculty. As far as I can tell their pitch to administrators goes like this: "Wouldn't you like robust online programs that will rain cash down on your campus? Of course you would! The problem is that your faculty are far too stupid to build such programs. Well good news, Academic Partners can work even with faculty as mentally deficient and unimaginative as those at your university to build a cash cow program!"

The average provost response to this goes something like: "Woah, are you reading my mind?! My faculty are incredibly stupid. Where do I sign?"

I have been pushing my school to put our MA online for literally a dozen years. One day I get an email--they have approved my idea (rejected soooo many times before) and we'd be working with out sexy new partners, AP.

The course development was an assessment-driven nightmare. We each developed nine-page spreadsheet "course maps" of tiered course objectives, and every single reading, assessment and discussion board had to be coded to which objective it met. It went on for months--"you used the wrong verb here, see our list" "do you need two readings that meet the same assessment objective, please eliminate one" "your objective 'learn some fucking shit about this topic' is unacceptable" "have you had a chance to respond to our revisions of your revisions of our revision yet?" I did learn some things about teaching online, but the coaches did not understand the first thing about the humanities and were about to learn. They were the experts.

What they were good at is creating a course schedule, a "carousel," designed so that a student could start any term and complete the program without any pauses. This is more complicated than it sounds.

So after six months of hell, we had our courses built out and AP shifted to recruitment. They were much better at this. We launched in November and as of yesterday we have 131 students! We are struggling a bit with staffing but it helps that we pay adjuncts pretty well and can cast our net nationwide. Our students are predominantly teachers and government workers looking for their next credential to advance in their careers. Also retirees who are just collecting MAs--I did not know that was a thing but we have at least a dozen. And the students are really good, better on average than our old on-campus MA program.

With our steadlly declining number of undergrad majors, this MA will save our department.

Anyway, that is the good and the bad of Academic Partners. Does anyone else have experience with them?

[quasihumanist]

Here's the real question:

Will the students who go through the program learn history, or will they have gone through a performance of learning history?  Or is it a mixed bag, depending on the skills and motivation of the individual student?

[artalot]

My campus hasn't used AP, but we have a partnership with a similar firm, Noodle. We are a regional LAC with a mediocre MBA program that had trouble getting students to come for free or near free. But Noodle convinced admin that we had a diamond in the rough. Our faculty finance committee did a thorough analysis and warned that there was no way we would make the money they said we would. Admin did not listen. And here we are several years later trying to get out of the partnership because, hey, it turns out that Noodle is making all the money and we get very little.

There was a story about this on CHE a while ago (last year?). Several prominent campuses have had this happen - their grad enrollments spike when these firms come in and everything looks rosy. But the firm takes quite a chunk of the revenue and the uni doesn't get the same financial benefit as it would from on campus students. Students on a computer don't buy parking, don't pay activities fees, etc. And they're primarily price driven, so if you are offering an introductory rate to bring people into the program, the enrollment spike isn't sustainable.

[Wahoo Redux]

Right before the pandemic our campus signed up with Academic Partners.  There was very little publicity from our uni, which is kind of par-for-the-course at our place which as an institution lacks the basic common sense to advertise.  Nobody I know has worked with AP, so I honestly don't know what programs they are "helping design" or whatever it is they do, but our enrollment has steadily declined in all quarters.  I don't know how much we pay them----our admin is not transparent----but our uni has very little gas left in the tank.

[Hegemony]

Our place looked into outfits like that and concluded that they were just a big outpouring of money that could stay inside the system. So they say that they duplicate the work of Academic Partners in-house. I don't know enough to know whether they're effective or not, but at least money is not flowing out the door.

[clean]

My employer used AP.  We have very large enrollments.  For graduate classes after we have 40 students enrolled, we get a 'grader', and another for every 40 students.  They are paid $3000 I think. 
Our classes are huge, though, many over 100 students.

I understand that one of the other universities in my state started a PHD or EDD  program. They promised that they would keep the numbers down, but that didnt match the model!  Then they found that faculty were each chairing a boatload of dissertations!  Way too many for anyone to do any work! 

So that was shut down, but that was years ago. 

We subsequently started an online undergrad program, but did not choose to use AP for that one! 

It looks like I will be teaching 2 classes in that program this coming year. 

[Dismal]

I remember the story about USC and their graduate program in social work that was being offered with the help of an online facilitator but cost $100,000 or more. But that was not AP company.

My U doesn't do this partnering stuff but it is suspect given what we know about the rate of return for some masters programs. I'm a little surprised that LarryC's U is just embarking on this because I thought universities had realized it was suspect. Online history MA? Jeez, what could go wrong here.

https://www.latimes.com/opinion/story/2021-11-12/another-usc-embarrassment-for-profit-recruitment-tactics-left-social-work-students-laden-with-deb

[Harlow2]

My place is looking at this group, and I have some concerns, so reading with interest.

[Mobius]

Can't remember if it's my current institution or a former one that was talking with them, as it was just a brief mention is faculty senate notes a few years ago. Nothing came from it. I'm at a regional, as well, with graduate programs that struggle to stay afloat. We really need better marketing since we don't have much completion within our geographic area and the price is competitive. We can also throw a lot of research money at students (it's not advertised, but there is a lot of money available for students who have a great capstone idea).

[Caracal]

Here's the real question:

Will the students who go through the program learn history, or will they have gone through a performance of learning history?  Or is it a mixed bag, depending on the skills and motivation of the individual student?

Grad classes in history are basically guided readings, so there's no reason it couldn't be rigorous. A lot of the things that can't be recreated online are about professionalization, and that's not usually that important for an MA degree, especially for people who are using it to advance the careers they are already in. As long as online students got sufficient access to advisors and professors it could work ok.

The danger is always that it's just a cash cow and nobody cares much about the students-which is a worry in general with MA programs in history...

[fizzycist]

It doesn't actually sound bad on the whole. What length contract do you sign with them? Can you weasel out after a few years and design your own setup based on what you learned (and with your newfound following)?

I could see a debate if this was a program you offer in person as well as online, and then worry you lose in person revenue from this. But if they are bringing in the students and it doesn't compete with an existing in-person program seems ok that they try to take a significant cut.

[Hibush]

You definitely want to avoid a deal like the one with HotChalk, which sank Concordia--Portland. That mess is still in the courts.  The deal was superficially similar to how AP is described here. (Noodle aquired HotChalk. I don't know whether its principals or principles are now at Noodle.)


ETA: Here is a great diagram of the players in the online service market.

[artalot]

You probably saw this CHE article re-posted from November 2021: https://www.chronicle.com/article/college-finances-are-being-eaten-from-the-inside
This story discusses the role of AP at Arkansas U, and it's not a rosy picture.

[spork]

No experience with AP. My university contracted with another OPM to standardize and recruit for our online RN-BSN program. It was a revenue sharing agreement that ended after a certain number of years. It made sense because my university has no instructional designers and admissions always has its head up its collective ass about how to market graduate programs. The OPM did a good job working with faculty to build out the course shells and put the curriculum on a carousel. But after an brief uptick in interest, some courses are again having trouble meeting minimum enrollment. When they get canceled, it turns "get your degree in only X months" into a lie.

[jimbogumbo]

Really hope things are going well larryc! I'm going to differ with you slightly in that I don't see that AP did any good in your case. I think what it shows is that once again the admin did not listen to a reasonable plan for a new program for far too long, and when it finally did it chose a typically high cost , cumbersome implementation. I am 100% confident your upper leveling business-project manager students could have figured out the scheduling in a semester.