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From the Margins to the Mainstream: What Online Learning’s Evolution Means for Universities
This article was originally published by 2U Chief Partnerships Officer Andy Morgan on LinkedIn. Follow him for more content on the future of higher education partnerships.
More than 58% of MBA students in the U.S. are now enrolled in online programs. Think about that. A degree once defined by classroom debates is now more digital than physical. In fact, there are more online MBAs today than there are Costcos across the U.S.
And it’s not just business school. Across higher ed, more U.S. college students are now learning entirely online than on campus. This shift is colliding with a challenging backdrop: enrollment pressures, tighter budgets, changing policy, and new competition.
I touched on these dynamics in my recent fireside chat at HolonIQ’s ‘Back to School’ Summit. Here, I want to go deeper—with practical steps universities can take to adapt and succeed. Let’s start from the beginning.
How we got here
In the early 2010s, online programs played a supplemental growth role. They expanded reach, but on-campus programs remained the core of institutional strategies. Still, the model worked, and skepticism about quality faded as universities demonstrated that, with proven partners like 2U and the right design, online learning could deliver exceptional experiences and outcomes for learners at scale.
COVID pulled the future forward. Overnight, every institution was forced online. Quality varied, but one truth was clear: online is no longer optional. In fact, a unified approach to online, on-campus, and hybrid is more important than ever.
Today, online learning drives higher ed’s growth, but crowded markets, rising learner expectations and choice, and AI are raising the bar. Simply being online is no longer enough. The question is: who will succeed?
From my experience, the winners share three traits:
1) They know their learner.
Ask yourself: Where do we have a right to win? Which learners are attracted to our institution, what are their challenges and aspirations, and how can we help them achieve and overcome them? Do our programs directly lead to opportunities? Would I recommend them to my co-worker based on cost, experience, and ROI?
Practical moves you can make: Audit your portfolio against high-growth fields. Design outward-in using market data. Assess ROI in every program. Retire programs that don’t deliver clear value or refresh them for relevance. Lean in to your unique institutional strengths.
What that looks like: A nationally recognized college with a ranked business program extends its impact with a hybrid C-suite program that blends online flexibility with immersive campus experiences. Alongside it, certificates and focused modules provide rising professionals with the chance to deepen their expertise in areas most critical to their careers.
2) They design for lifelong learning with an integrated strategy.
Ask yourself: Do our learners have ways to enter our ecosystem across their careers? Can they start small and stack into something bigger without friction? Can they return as they enter leadership roles? What is the right modality and mix of online and on-campus for each unique offering? Are online, on-campus, and hybrid experiences reinforcing each other, or competing?
Practical moves you can make: Take a modular approach to a portfolio build. Scale limited faculty time to create a portfolio of offerings that appeals to learners across their careers. Create fluid movement between short courses, certificates, and degrees, and market them as a collective portfolio. Use AI and other digital tools to guide learners to their next step.
What that looks like: A university anchors its portfolio with a data science master’s program and surrounds it with short courses and certificates in fast-moving areas like AI. These offerings can stand alone or carry credit into the degree, giving professionals the option to deepen expertise at the point most relevant to their careers.
2) They build to bend.
Ask yourself: What are our goals, and where do we need to build capacity? Where can we gain leverage or agility through partnership? Can those partnerships evolve with our internal maturity and within a dynamic market? Can services scale up or down? Do we have the capabilities to update course materials regularly?
Practical moves you can make: Evaluate partnerships with aligned incentives that are designed to work hand in glove with your own teams as you mature, and bring speed and agility. Create governance structures that empower faster decision-making. Migrate to an evergreen course refresh cycle to stay competitive, and assume you need to do this much more frequently than you may have in the past.
What that looks like: A flagship public university launches online with partner support across marketing, enrollment, and placement. The partnership provides a unified marketing approach and compliance services that enable national scale, while offering the institution the capacity to develop additional programs under the same umbrella.
Online learning has moved from the margins to the mainstream. It’s no longer an add-on. It’s the engine driving scale and resilience in higher ed. The institutions that will lead the next decade are those that embrace this—they know their learner, design for lifelong learning with an integrated strategy, and build to bend. At 2U, we, too, are meeting the moment, focusing our efforts to empower great institutions to embrace change, building pathways that serve learners throughout their careers, and adapting our partnerships to stay flexible in a changing market. Because these lessons are as true for us as the institutions we serve.
What about you—do you agree? Are you asking these questions inside your institution? What attributes do you see in those paving the way forward?
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