AI is no longer a horizon issue for online programs: it is already reshaping how faculty teach, how students learn, and how operations run. The challenge now is that adoption has outpaced institutional infrastructure, with faculty skepticism creating friction in the instructional core (Quality Matters / Eduventures / EDUCAUSE, 2024), student AI literacy going largely unmeasured (Tyton Partners, 2026), and online education bearing a disproportionate share of academic integrity scrutiny (UPCEA, 2026). Institutions running online programs need a clearer picture of where AI is actually being used, where the gaps are, and what support structures are producing results.

The Current State: Uneven Adoption Across Teaching, Services, and Operations

The practical portrait of AI in online higher education right now is one of concentrated adoption in some functions and notable underinvestment in others. Across campus applications broadly, teaching and learning leads at 76% and administrative processes at 57%, while recruiting and enrollment (34%) and student support services (29%) remain underdeveloped relative to their potential (The Chronicle of Higher Education & P3•EDU, 2025). Among online enterprises specifically, the top AI applications are enhancing teaching practices (61%), administrative efficiency (58%), student support services (39%), and personalized learning (37%), with instructional efficiency and faculty support cited as the primary strategic driver by 67% of respondents (UPCEA, 2025). Individual use tells a similar story of momentum: 43% of administrators now use AI daily, compared to 32% of students and 25% of faculty, and over half of all three groups use AI at least weekly (Tyton Partners, 2026). What this distribution reveals is that administrative staff have largely adopted AI as a productivity tool, while faculty adoption remains slower and more contested. For institutions running online programs, where faculty often work remotely and course design decisions carry significant scale implications, the gap between administrator and faculty adoption is not just a culture issue. It shapes instructional quality and student experience at scale.

Faculty Support Structures: What Institutions Are Actually Offering

The faculty adoption gap has not gone unaddressed, though the interventions most commonly deployed tend toward structured programming rather than financial incentives. Among online enterprises, 77% offer structured training or workshops, 70% support communities of practice or faculty learning groups, and 62% provide internal showcases or sandbox environments (UPCEA, 2025). These are reasonable starting points. What is less common, and likely worth examining, is direct compensation: only 15% offer microgrants or stipends for AI-related work, and 13% use recognition mechanisms such as badging (UPCEA, 2025). Given that COLOs perceive faculty attitudes toward AI’s educational applications as typically neutral or negative (Quality Matters / Eduventures / EDUCAUSE, 2024), relying almost entirely on voluntary participation in workshops and learning communities may not be sufficient to shift the instructional core. The resistance pattern mirrors what online learning itself encountered during its early adoption phases, which suggests the pathway forward likely involves sustained, structured engagement rather than one-time training events. Institutions should assess whether their current faculty support model is primarily informational or genuinely incentivized, and consider whether adding even modest stipends or course-release provisions for AI integration work changes faculty engagement patterns.

Student-Facing AI: Encouragement Without Measurement

Student use of AI is growing, but institutional approaches to supporting and measuring that use remain inconsistent. About one-third of COLOs (34%) reported that students are being encouraged to use AI to support learning, including generating content (32%), developing or editing code (29%), and using AI-powered adaptive learning tools (27%) (Quality Matters / Eduventures / EDUCAUSE, 2024). Encouragement is a starting point, but it is not a curriculum strategy. The measurement gap is significant: only 10% of administrators report that their institutions currently measure student AI literacy, though 42% expect to do so within three years (Tyton Partners, 2026). That three-year window suggests many institutions are aware they need a more structured approach but have not yet built one. For online programs, where demonstrating learning outcomes is already central to quality assurance and accreditation conversations, embedding AI literacy as a measurable competency is a concrete curricular decision, not just a values statement. Institutions should define what AI fluency means in the context of their disciplines and degree levels, then identify where in the curriculum or co-curriculum that competency can be taught, practiced, and assessed.

MetricBenchmarkSourceStudents encouraged to use AI for learning34% of COLOs reportingQuality Matters / Eduventures / EDUCAUSE, 2024Students using AI to generate content32%Quality Matters / Eduventures / EDUCAUSE, 2024Institutions currently measuring student AI literacy10%Tyton Partners, 2026Institutions expecting to measure AI literacy within 3 years42%Tyton Partners, 2026Faculty using AI daily25%Tyton Partners, 2026Administrators using AI daily43%Tyton Partners, 2026

Planned Expansion and the Academic Integrity Burden Online Programs Carry

The near-term trajectory of AI in higher education points toward significant investment in student-facing functions. Institutions anticipate expanding AI use in recruiting and enrollment from 34% currently to 73% over the next two to three years, in student support services from 29% to 69%, and in fundraising and alumni engagement from 19% to 60% (The Chronicle of Higher Education & P3•EDU, 2025). That scale of planned expansion across the OPM and edtech sector is consistent: 70% of companies in that space are already using AI to enhance the learning experience, and 33% are using it to improve business operations (Validated Insights, 2026). Against this backdrop of accelerating adoption, one persistent friction point for online programs is worth naming directly. 55% of COLOs reported that academic integrity and AI concerns are raised first in the context of online learning, even though the risk is consistent across modalities (UPCEA, 2026). That asymmetry places a credibility burden on online programs that the evidence does not support. Institutions addressing AI integrity concerns through online-specific policy responses, rather than institution-wide ones, may be reinforcing a perception problem rather than solving an academic one. Institutions should position AI integrity policy as a campus-wide responsibility and advocate explicitly for that framing in faculty governance and senior leadership conversations.

Action Items

• Audit current AI applications across instructional, administrative, and student-facing functions to identify where deployment is active, where it is planned, and where gaps exist relative to peer benchmarks

• Map faculty AI support offerings against what the evidence shows as most common (structured training, communities of practice, sandbox environments) and identify whether incentive structures such as stipends or course releases are absent and worth piloting

• Define AI literacy as a measurable competency for students, specifying what it means in context, and identify where in existing curriculum or co-curriculum it can be embedded and assessed

• Work with academic affairs and faculty governance to frame AI academic integrity policy as institution-wide rather than online-specific, and request data disaggregated by modality before accepting modality-specific policy responses

• Establish a baseline for student and faculty AI use within online programs, using it to track adoption over time and inform resource allocation decisions

• Engage OPM and edtech partners about their current and planned AI applications in learning experience and operations, and assess how those capabilities align with institutional priorities

The evidence collectively suggests that institutions running online programs are in a middle stage of AI adoption: past the point of early experimentation, but not yet at systematic integration. Administrative adoption is outpacing faculty adoption, student encouragement is outpacing student measurement, and planned expansion in student-facing AI is outpacing current infrastructure. The online programs best positioned to benefit from AI investment over the next several years are likely those that treat faculty engagement as a change management challenge requiring incentives and not just training, that build AI literacy into their quality frameworks before external pressures require it, and that resist the pull toward online-specific AI policies that may inadvertently reinforce the credibility gaps the field has worked for decades to close.

Sources

References

1. The Future of the OPM Market in the United States. Validated Insights, 2026.

2. Time for Class 2026: The AI Tipping Point. Tyton Partners, 2026.

3. Benchmarking Online Enterprises: Insights into Structures, Strategies, and Financial Models in Higher Education. UPCEA, 2026.

4. Benchmarking Online Enterprises: Insights into Structures, Strategies, and Financial Models in Higher Education. UPCEA, 2025.

5. 2025 Public-Private Partnership Survey Key Findings. The Chronicle of Higher Education & P3•EDU, 2025.

6. CHLOE 9: Strategy Shift: Institutions Respond to Sustained Online Demand — The Changing Landscape of Online Education, 2024. Quality Matters / Eduventures / EDUCAUSE, 2024.

About the Author

Jeremiah Grabowski is the founder of Fractional COLO, where he provides Chief Online Learning Officer-level leadership to institutions building and scaling online programs. He writes regularly on online learning strategy at fractionalcolo.com and on Substack at coloinsights.substack.com.

I do not think anyone is misleading me. I believe both things can be true. When the tide comes in, it is hard to tell how much of the rise is your own doing, and how much is due to a shift in the market. Is it strategy or riding a rising tide?

Regardless of where you are on your online journey, standing up your first few programs or already seeing some wins, I built a course to accelerate what comes next. In the span of seven months you build a real strategy with a real budget behind it. You walk away with a playbook both your Provost and CFO can actually invest in.

Where the growth is

Online enrollment has risen roughly 90% since 2017 while overall enrollment fell about 5% (EducationDynamics, 2024). Gallup found in 2024 that 59% of unenrolled adults had considered a credential program in the past two years, up 15 points from 2021, and that 86% think they are likely to enroll within five years. Adults who started somewhere and stopped out are 26 points more likely to come back than adults who never enrolled at all.

I would be careful with those numbers, though. Adult learners are not going to backfill a shrinking traditional class, and a plan that assumes they will is going to disappoint somebody. The demand is real, and in my experience, it goes to whichever institution is prepared to capture it.

Where the low-hanging fruit is

In every institutional assessment I have worked on, some of the highest-return findings cost almost nothing.

Things like responding to an inquiry in hours instead of days. Fixing a transfer credit policy written for a residential nineteen-year-old that quietly turns away working adults. Cleaning up a handoff between admissions and the academic unit that nobody actually owns. Deciding out loud, and on paper, who is accountable for online enrollment.

None of that needs a new platform or a new line in the budget. Most of it is change management, which means it needs somebody already inside the institution who has been given the authority to act. Nothing in this list needs to be contracted out, and chances are there is already someone at your institution who knows where the flaws are. Let’s teach that person how to be a change agent.

Why a course

In my experience, very few small colleges can justify buying this expertise outright. Nearly all of them can learn it, and the ideal candidate is usually already on the payroll.

This is the part I feel strongest about. A director or associate dean who has been at your institution for eight years knows things I never will. They know which conversations are genuinely difficult, which committee will slow a decision down, and what has already been tried and quietly abandoned. Nobody is better positioned to adapt the best practice to your specific campus. What they have usually been missing is a framework to work through it and the data to make the case for what they already know.

I am running it in partnership with Small College Consulting, who work exclusively with small colleges and host the National Small College Conference. Scott and Chris have spent decades of their careers working arm in arm with the schools this course is built for, and they know the support these institutions need.

How the course is delivered

We meet monthly on Zoom, starting in October and running through the spring. The cohort is capped at fifteen on purpose, so I can actually work with everyone.

Each participant builds an Online Learning Strategic Playbook for their own institution, and every module produces one chapter of it. The seven chapters cover:

1. Where the institution stands today. A readiness assessment across ten operational areas.

2. The financial foundation. Building a customized budget and three-year pro forma, cost-benefit analysis, and a business case written for your finance team.

3. Attracting online students. Marketing, SEO, and AI-driven enrollment strategy.

4. The enrollment funnel. Building a customized student journey from first inquiry through first day of class.

5. The staffing plan. and a 12-month implementation roadmap.

6. Delivering quality. Standard operating procedures, course standards, faculty development, and AI policy.

7. Knowing it is working. KPIs, a data dashboard, and a continuous improvement cycle.

In total, that is nine facilitated Zoom sessions counting a course kickoff and wrap-up session, where participants present the finished playbook to the cohort. Everyone also gets two individual coaching sessions with me. Those are targeted sessions where we work through key components. The first works through the financial model and the business case, and it comes early because the financial model usually decides whether any of the rest gets approved. The second reviews the whole operational plan to ensure continuity across all areas.

The fee includes an institutional assessment framework, along with operational templates for every chapter. There is also an optional presentation slot at next year’s National Small College Conference, which puts a participant’s work in front of a room of their peers.

Return on your investment

The course is $5,000 for the seven months. For context, a full-time chief online learning officer lands somewhere near $175,000 to $190,000 in a first year, and an OPM takes 50 to 60% of tuition for the life of the contract. I cannot promise anyone an enrollment number, though I wish I could. What I can tell you is that the work produces a document with a real financial model in it, and that model will separate hope from reality. Some participants are going to find that their plan does not pencil out at the size they had imagined. Finding that out in March is a much cheaper lesson than finding it out two years and three hires later.

There is also a version of this that has very little to do with online strategy. If you have an emerging leader you want to invest in, this is seven months of structured executive-level work on a problem your institution needs solved anyway. They come out with a credential, a cohort of peers, and a document your cabinet can act on.

A cohort approach

The cohort may end up mattering as much as the curriculum.

From experience I can say that the people doing this work often have no counterparts on campus to discuss issues with, let alone one at a peer institution. Fifteen of them working the same problem for seven months, watching each other’s playbooks take shape, tends to produce relationships that outlast the course. Some of these schools are already doing individual pieces of this very well and hearing how a peer is tackling an issue is invaluable information.

Come to the session on September 17

Applications for the October cohort are due October 2, and we read them as they come in. The course is capped at fifteen seats. The full outline and the application are at fractionalcolo.com/sccacademy.

Before you decide anything, come to the session we are running on
Thursday, September 17 at 2:00 pm (ET).

I am going to discuss the most common mistakes institutions make when recruiting adult online students. Most of them trace back to one number, that roughly 80% of online students enroll at the first school that accepts them. Scott and Chris will also walk through the regional recruiter service they are launching, which is another way to reach adult students without adding a permanent position.

Our goal is for leaders to be able to walk away with practical ideas that they can implement on their campus immediately.

Register here: https://us06web.zoom.us/meeting/register/2dQrTX14RcaMM0VqXRewRw

If you can’t make the webinar or would rather just talk it through, send me a quick email, and we’ll find some time to chat.

—Jeremiah
jeremiah@fractionalcolo.com

One of the wonderful things about our industry is the volume of high-quality reports and white papers published every year. My old workflow probably looks familiar: a new report comes out, I read it, and save it to a generic reports folder. Nine months later, someone asks me to present on enrollment trends or student retention, and I spend the better part of an afternoon trying to find the one statistic I know is in there somewhere. That is a real pain point for busy administrators, and it is the problem the COLO Insights research library is built around.

Each brief at insights.fractionalcolo.com synthesizes findings from multiple national reports into a single readable document, with key statistics highlighted, findings grouped around themes administrators need to stay current on, and actionable ideas you can bring to your campus. The library currently has nine briefs across six themes and updates as new research is published.

If you still value the blocking and tackling commentary, the newsletter is not going away. It remains the place for my own thinking, reactions, and field observations, with the research hub serving as the evidence base behind it. I see them as two parts of the same resource.

With the launch of the library, I also renamed the newsletter from DIY Online Operations to COLO Insights, a name that better reflects where this work is going.

The web versions of all nine briefs are free at insights.fractionalcolo.com. As a subscriber, you can also download the PDF version of any brief, formatted for sharing with a leadership team and including full data tables and annotated citations.

As always, if you have questions or want to talk all things online learning, do not hesitate to reach out. Thanks!

Those are all legitimate questions, and I won’t pretend I’ve got them figured out. But honestly, those aren’t the ones I’m interested in, or the ones I keep coming back to when I think about the future of online learning.

What I keep coming back to is a structural issue. It’s not that hard for one person, a small team, or a single department to start using these tools and see some wins. The harder question is, how does a 4,000-student university with a faculty senate, a curriculum committee, an academic affairs committee, and a five-year strategic plan actually absorb something like this? Higher ed wasn’t built to move fast. In fact, some may argue moving deliberately and slowly has been a positive to preserving the essence of higher ed. But AI is moving fast, really fast. I am having trouble visualizing what happens when those two things meet, and I’m not convinced anyone else does either.

So here are the three questions I keep coming back to. I’m not claiming these are the right ones. Maybe somebody else out there has better ones, and they’re probably a lot smarter than me, but these are just the ones I can’t shake.

Curriculum decay, and why I think online might actually be ahead

Curriculum decay has always been an issue in higher ed. The cost of revision is real, and formal review cycles can take two or three years. To steal a quote from a popular meme, “ain’t nobody got time for that.”

Workforce expectations are shifting underneath us a lot faster than they used to. A program that is aligned to employer needs in 2022 probably has meaningful gaps by 2026. Healthcare protocols change. The tools business graduates are expected to know shift. Whole job categories get restructured.

Now, I’m going to go a little contrarian here. I actually think online programs may be doing better on this than the trad side. When you move a program online, you usually take that opportunity to refresh courses, and you should build in regular course reviews with instructional designers and faculty. That structure forces courses to be refreshed. Compare that to a face-to-face gen ed course where the same professor has been teaching the same content, the same way, for 15 years, maybe 20 years. In this scenario, the online review cycle isn’t a bureaucratic burden. It’s actually a feature.

But even the online side still has a real bottleneck, and it’s not the courses themselves. It’s the curriculum approval process.

To be honest, this might be a hot take, but I don’t think it’s that hard to get AI to give you 90% of a refreshed curriculum draft. Feed it your current curriculum. Feed it current workplace competencies. Have it scan job postings and labor market data. A month, maybe less, and you’ve got a strong working draft for faculty to react to instead of a blank page.

That part is the easy part. The bottleneck is what happens next. The draft goes to the curriculum committee, then to faculty senate, then to academic affairs, then to the accreditor. By the time you’ve made it through all 18 layers of approval, the workforce has moved again. The curriculum is already outdated again. I heard George Siemens, Chief Scientist and co-founder of Matter and Space  talk about what an AI-first university could look like. He theorized that the curriculum would be ever-evolving. It could constantly be checking the needs of the workforce, student outcomes, and improving itself. Much like the LLMs today are doing to train the next generation of LLMs.

So the question I keep wrestling with isn’t really “can AI help us update curriculum faster.” It’s whether our approval processes still make sense at the pace we now need to move. AI can get the draft done in a month. The institution still decides how long it sits in committee. That’s the part I don’t have a clear answer for, and it’s the harder question.

What about vibe course design?

In the coding world, people have started calling something like this “vibe coding.” Developer plus AI, plus flow state, building software together. I keep wondering if there’s a version of this for course development.

Picture a faculty member, an instructional designer, and an LLM on the projector, all in the same room for an hour. Course materials loaded into a Claude project. Wispr Flow running so nobody has to type. Everyone just talks through learning objectives, course maps, assessment design, rubrics. The ID isn’t there as a gatekeeper. They’re a co-creator. AI is generating drafts on the fly that the faculty member shapes and the ID structures for the LMS. By the end of that hour, the ID walks out with most of the templating done, the HTML roughed in, the course package most of the way to import.

I know this is doable. It’s not even that hard. I’ve done it.

What’s hard is getting everyone to actually want to work this way. If the ID is protective of their craft, this doesn’t work. If the faculty member is suspicious of AI, this doesn’t work. If administration won’t let go of the existing development workflow, this doesn’t work. The bottleneck stops being capability. It becomes buy-in.

Maybe “vibe course design” isn’t the right name. But the underlying idea, that AI becomes a third voice in the room rather than a tool somebody uses alone, feels like where the real productivity gains are going to come from. I just haven’t seen many institutions structured to actually do that yet.

Are you seeing the same pattern as the curriculum question? The capability is there. The willingness to work differently is the part you can’t easily automate.

The governance question, or is it the governor?

If the first two questions are about pace and buy-in, this last one might be the clearest example of an institution throttling itself.

Most institutional AI policies I’ve read focus on students. A handful address faculty. Almost none of them say anything about how the administrative and operational side of the house should be using AI.

I don’t want to come across as dismissive of the student-facing policy work. It’s important. Academic integrity matters, equity matters, data privacy matters. Getting these policies right is genuinely hard work, and I don’t envy the folks doing it.

But while all the institutional bandwidth gets locked up on the student side, the operational uses are sitting right there. Here are just a few examples I have dabbled in recently.

Website copy: with a decent copywriting prompt, some exemplar examples, and your institution’s brand voice loaded in, you could probably rewrite huge sections of your program pages in a single day. Better, tighter, more student-focused. I’m not saying it goes live without a human in the loop. But the starting point is a hundred times further along than staring at a blank page. As we all know, your website is your number one marketing tool, but when were program pages last updated?

Marketing materials: if your marketing team uploaded your brand kit and started using something like Claude Design, you’d be producing on-brand collateral in minutes instead of weeks. Across every program.

Institutional advancement: imagine your advancement team hopping on a 30-minute Zoom call with a successful alum. They drop the transcript into an LLM. They get back 85% of a publishable alumni profile.

These are just examples, and I’m no expert in any of them, but I have seen them work. The folks who do this work for a living can probably poke holes in my specifics. But the broader point is that there are operational gains sitting right there in front of us, and most institutions aren’t capturing them. My concern is the bandwidth, the attention, the energy, all of it is locked up on the policy-creation side.

That’s what I mean by asking whether the governance question has actually become the governor. Like the device in a car engine that limits how fast you can go. I fear the legitimate work of getting policy right on student use is, whether anyone intends it to or not, throttling everything else. Every month spent stuck on that question is a month where the operational side could be getting better.

I would hope these things can be decoupled. I believe you don’t actually need to solve student AI policies before you let your marketing team go to work on the website. I’m just not sure how many institutions are operating that way.

Where I’m landing (for now)

So those are the three questions I keep coming back to, and I don’t have clean answers. Some of this might be obvious to people working at a much larger scale than me. Some of it might just be wrong.

In each one of those three questions, the technology can already do more than we’re letting it. The curriculum draft, the course build, the website copy. None of those are really capability problems anymore. The thing setting the speed limit is the decision making and the institution’s willingness to change.

That’s the part I keep chewing on. Most of the conference talk is about a pretty narrow slice of the problem, and the harder question is what happens when an ecosystem built to resist change runs into something moving this fast.

If you’re sitting with the same questions, or you’ve figured out something I’m missing, I’d genuinely love to hear it. Always happy to jump on a call (or a Zoom). jeremiah@fractionalcolo.com

In 2020 and 2021, a lot of institutions launched online programs under pressure. Some had been building toward it for years and the pandemic just accelerated the timeline. Others were in genuine crisis mode and did what they had to do to keep students learning and keep revenue from collapsing. Either way, the primary goal was to get something live.

From my experience, many of those programs are still running exactly as they were designed four or five years ago.

Same course structure. Same learning activities designed during a two-week sprint in the summer of 2020. Same technology tools embedded, some of which the field has largely moved past. Faculty who completed an initial training and have not had meaningful development support since. Program enrollment is trending flat or softening and nobody is sure exactly why.

Maybe I’ve watched Pirates of the Caribbean on TBS one too many times, but I call this the ghost ship problem. The lights are on. Students are aboard. But nobody is steering.

How It Happens

Launching an online program is genuinely hard. It requires institutional will, faculty buy-in, instructional design capacity, and a level of coordination across academic affairs, marketing, advising, and technology that does not come together easily. When a program successfully goes live and enrolls its first cohort, there is usually a real sense of accomplishment. And there should be.

The problem is the launch becomes the finish line when in reality it should be the starting line.

Once a program is running and enrolling students, it tends to drop off the priority list. There are new initiatives to pursue, other programs to develop, accreditation visits to prepare for, and operational fires to put out on a daily basis. The program that is working fine, meaning it is not failing, does not get attention. It gets assumed.

That assumption is where things quietly go wrong. A program that is not actively being improved is almost certainly getting relatively worse in a market where new competitors are entering and student expectations are rising.

What a Ghost Ship Looks Like

It can be subtle at first. A course that references a study from 2016 as if it reflects current practice. A technology embedded in the curriculum that students find clunky, but that nobody has flagged because the evaluation form does not ask about it. An assignment sequence that made sense in the context of a quick pivot but was never aligned with the learning outcomes the program is supposed to deliver.

Over time the signals get louder. Student satisfaction scores drift downward by a point or two each year, never enough to trigger alarm, but consistently in the wrong direction. A faculty member retires and the person who steps in finds a course shell that no one has clearly owned or updated. Enrollment holds steady for a year on the inertia of early reputation and then softens. By the time leadership recognizes it as a problem, a lot of quiet damage has already been done.

Online students are a particularly discerning audience. They are typically paying out of pocket and making a real investment of their time and money. They are not captive in the way a residential student in a required course is. They have more options and less patience. They notice when a program feels dated or poorly maintained. And they talk to other people about it.

The downstream effect on recruitment is real. An online program’s reputation travels through professional networks, employer relationships, and alumni word-of-mouth in ways that are hard to measure but not hard to understand. A graduating student who says “it was fine, but the courses weren’t really engaging” is not generating the kind of referral activity that sustains enrollment growth.

A Basic Program Review Can Help

The good news is that avoiding the ghost ship problem does not require rebuilding a program every year or standing up an expensive quality assurance infrastructure. It requires a regular, honest review of a few key things, and the institutional commitment to actually act on what that review surfaces.

At a minimum, a functional annual review covers the following:

Enrollment and retention data by cohort. Is the program growing, holding steady, or declining? Where are students dropping out within the program sequence? Are there specific courses or points in the curriculum where attrition spikes? The data usually tells a story if you look at it carefully.

Student feedback. Course evaluations are a starting point, but they are not sufficient on their own. More valuable is direct feedback from recent graduates and current students about what they found most and least useful. Exit surveys, periodic check-ins with enrolled cohorts, and alumni conversations can surface things that a standard evaluation form misses.

A content audit. Some may argue “academic freedom” on this point. I do not. Best practice dictates that someone look at the courses on a regular basis. Are the readings current? Are the case studies still relevant? Is the technology being used still appropriate? This does not have to be exhaustive every year, but a systematic rotation every three years catches problems before they compound.

A competitive scan. What are comparable programs doing? How have credentials in this field evolved? Are employers asking for skills or knowledge that the program is not currently developing? A quick look at what competitors are offering and what employers in the field are prioritizing takes a few hours and is often revealing.

A conversation with the faculty who are actually teaching. Faculty who teach in a program every semester often have a clear view of what is working and what is not. They know which assignments generate genuine learning and which ones students are going through the motions on. They know where the curriculum has gaps.

Making It Sustainable

The goal is not to do a massive program overhaul annually. That is not sustainable and it creates faculty fatigue. The goal is to make one or two meaningful improvements per review cycle, so the program stays current, faculty stay engaged, and students feel like they are in something that reflects the field they are actually entering.

Building review into the calendar is the key step most institutions skip. It needs to be a scheduled event with clear ownership, defined deliverables, and leadership attention, not something that happens informally when someone finds the time. A program review that depends on someone getting around to it will not happen consistently. One that is on the academic calendar and tied to annual planning will.

There is a mindset shift underneath all of this. Launching a program is an achievement. Running a program well, year after year, is a different kind of work. It is less visible, less celebrated, and less likely to get institutional recognition. But it is what separates programs that build lasting reputations from programs that quietly become ghost ships.

If you have an online program that launched in the last four or five years and has not had a structured review since, that is the most valuable place to spend a few hours this semester. Not a task force, not a consultant engagement. Just an honest look at the data and a conversation with the people closest to the work.

How does your institution approach ongoing program review for online offerings? I’m curious whether it is a formal process or something more informal, and what has made it actually happen.

Questions? Feel free to reach out, I promise I’ll get back to you. jeremiah@fractionalcolo.com

I’ll ask how things are going, and the response is usually “Things are running.”

I’ll then ask who owns the strategy for which programs to grow, which to sunset, and how to position them against competing institutions.

Then comes the long pause. The looks around the table mirror the “not it” face you see on kids.

“Well...it’s the provost, or the VP of enrollment. It’s collaborative, but honestly, nobody owns it.”

On some level that answer is acceptable. There’s no chaos. Nothing is failing. But when everyone “owns” it, no one owns it. You get a slow drift. Kind of like a ghost ship. Things are running, but nobody is steering.

The difference between managing and leading

Online learning operations need both. Management keeps the machine running — course builds, LMS administration, faculty support, enrollment logistics. Most institutions have that covered to some degree.

Leadership is something different. It asks harder and more strategic questions: Are we building the right programs? Are our students graduating? How are our acquisition costs trending? Where will online enrollment come from in five years?

A Chief Online Learning Officer sits at that level. Not in the weeds of daily operations, though a good COLO knows that world well. They are working with other senior leaders to set the direction, monitoring trends, and connecting online strategy to your institution’s larger mission and financial health.

If no one at your institution is doing that work, it’s not getting done. The provost has 40 other things on their plate. The director of online education is managing the machine. The gap between those two roles is exactly where institutions get stuck. A year from now, nothing will have changed.

Five signs you need a COLO

Not every institution needs a full-time COLO. But with online enrollments being one of the only growth sectors in higher ed, someone needs to be playing that role. Here are the clearest signals:

1. Nobody can tell you, in one clear sentence, what your online strategy is. If you ask five senior leaders and get five different answers, you don’t have a strategy. You have five opinions, a lot of activity, and no direction.

2. Online enrollment is flat or declining, and you’re not sure why. This is often the first visible symptom. The underlying cause could be program mix, pricing, marketing, student experience, or all of the above. Diagnosing that requires someone whose full-time job is to understand your online portfolio.

3. You’re launching new programs reactively, not proactively. A faculty member gets excited about a new subject area. A board member suggested it. A competitor launches something similar. You build it. Two years later, enrollment is thin and you’re not sure why you built it. A COLO creates a filter for those decisions before resources are committed.

4. Your online programs feel like a separate universe from the rest of the institution. This is the sign I see the most. Faculty don’t trust the value of online programs. Students in online programs feel like second-class citizens. The instructional design team is buried under work and under-resourced. These are cultural and structural problems, not just operational ones.

5. A big decision is coming that nobody has the bandwidth to make well. A potential OPM contract. A major curriculum overhaul. A new platform migration. Decisions like these require someone with the time, the expertise, and the authority to lead them. Assigning them to an already-stretched director usually means the decision gets made poorly or not at all.

What a fractional model makes possible

For most schools, the honest answer to “do you need a COLO?” is: probably yes. The honest answer to “can you afford one?” is: maybe not full-time.

A full-time Chief Online Learning Officer salary ranges from $130,000 to $180,000 or more in annual compensation. That’s before benefits, which typically add another 30%, onboarding time, and the 12-18 month ramp before they’re fully effective.

A fractional arrangement gives you the same level of strategic expertise at a fraction of the cost, without the long-term commitment of a hire. It’s not a consultant who writes a report and disappears. It’s someone embedded in your work, attending your leadership meetings, rolling up their sleeves, and making decisions alongside your team.

What it is not: a substitute for operational staff. A fractional COLO is a strategic and executive resource. They can pinch hit for a time, but if your online operation is severely understaffed, that problem needs to be solved separately. The good news is that a COLO can help you develop the budget model to support needed staff.

How to know if your institution is ready

The best-fit institutions for a fractional COLO arrangement tend to share a few traits. Leadership is bought in on online education as a serious revenue and mission priority, not just a checkbox. There’s an operational team in place that just needs better direction and support. And there’s a real problem to solve, whether that’s enrollment, program quality, a major upcoming decision, or a strategy that doesn’t exist yet.

If your president or provost is still unconvinced that online education is worth serious investment, no COLO is going to fix that. That’s a leadership alignment problem, and it needs to be addressed before anything else.

But if alignment exists and the gap is expertise, bandwidth, or strategic direction, that’s exactly the problem a fractional COLO is built to solve.

The question worth asking

I’ll end with the question I ask at the start of almost every exploratory conversation: If you had a magic wand, what would be your wish?

Most people don’t say ‘more courses’ or ‘a new LMS.’ They say they want a clear strategy, and a clear direction. They want to stop feeling like they’re spinning their wheels. They want the right hand to know what the left hand is doing. Honestly, they want to win.

That’s the job. If nobody at your institution is doing it, it’s worth asking why.

Questions? Feel free to reach out, I promise I’ll get back to you. jeremiah@fractionalcolo.com

Most university leaders have heard the term. Fewer can define it clearly.

A Chief Online Learning Officer, or COLO, is the senior executive responsible for an institution’s online education enterprise. That includes strategy, operations, technology, faculty development, enrollment, and student support for online programs. UPCEA, which first defined the role in 2017, describes the COLO as “the decision-maker for an online enterprise” at the unit, college, or institutional level.

That definition covers a lot of ground. Which is part of why the role is still misunderstood.

What a COLO Actually Does

The COLO sits at the intersection of curriculum, technology, and business strategy. At institutions with mature online programs, that might mean overseeing a team of dozens, managing multi-million dollar budgets, and reporting directly to the provost or president.

At smaller or emerging institutions, the COLO might be the only person thinking holistically about online learning. They’re building the infrastructure, developing faculty, selecting vendors, setting quality standards, and measuring whether any of it is working.

The role is not purely academic. It is not purely operational. It requires fluency in both.

But the technical competencies are only part of the picture. The most effective COLOs operate with what I think of as a teacher’s heart. They don’t just consult with executives and leave. They work with instructional designers, faculty, and front-line staff. They help your instructional designers get better at coaching faculty. They help your faculty understand what learner-centered design actually means in practice. They help your support staff advocate more effectively for online students. Transformation doesn’t happen at the annual board retreat. It happens when everyone in the organization understands what they’re building and why.

The goal of a COLO, done right, is to build institutional capacity that doesn’t depend on outside expertise to sustain. The playbook gets shared. The systems get documented. The people get developed. When a COLO leaves, your institution should be more capable than when it started, not more dependent on whoever was leading the work.

Why the Title Varies

You’ll find people functioning as COLOs working under titles like Dean of Online Learning, Vice Provost for Digital Strategy, and Executive Director of Extended Campus. The title often reflects institutional politics as much as it reflects the actual scope of the job.

UPCEA acknowledged this explicitly in its 2024 definition update. Rather than standardize titles, it focuses on the characteristics and accountabilities that define the role regardless of what it’s called. If you’re the decision-maker for online strategy and operations, you’re functioning as a COLO.

Why This Role Matters Now

Online learning is no longer a peripheral offering for most institutions. It’s often the primary growth strategy, a revenue source, and a competitive differentiator. And yet, many institutions still treat it as an extension of IT or as a service function scattered across individual academic departments.

The result is fragmented operations, inconsistent quality, and missed enrollment opportunities.

A COLO brings coherence. Instead of a dozen departments each making individual decisions about online learning, someone is accountable for the whole picture. They align technology with pedagogy, connect enrollment goals with program design, and build the internal capacity to sustain growth over time.

For some institutions, that looks like a full-time C-suite hire. For others, particularly small to midsize colleges and universities, the economics make that difficult. The salary and benefits for a senior-level executive can represent a significant commitment before any programs have launched or generated meaningful revenue.

The Fractional Model

One emerging alternative is the fractional COLO: a senior executive who embeds within an institution on a part-time basis, providing the same level of expertise without the full-time commitment.

The model is particularly well suited for institutions that recognize the need to invest in online learning leadership but aren’t yet generating the revenue to justify a full-time hire. Rather than waiting until conditions are perfect, or assigning the work to someone without the right background, a fractional COLO lets an institution get started with expert guidance while it builds toward something sustainable.

This is not a traditional consulting relationship, and that distinction matters. A consultant delivers recommendations. A fractional COLO is embedded in the institution’s operations, attending leadership meetings, working directly with staff, and accountable for outcomes. Your enrollment goals become their enrollment goals. Your launch dates keep them up at night. When something goes wrong, the response isn’t an email explaining why it happened. It’s a sleeves-rolled-up effort to fix it.

That level of ownership changes what the work actually looks like. And it changes what the institution gets out of it.

What to Look For

Whether you’re considering a full-time COLO hire or a fractional arrangement, the qualifications are similar.

Look for experience managing online programs at scale, not just designing courses. A background that spans strategy, operations, and people management. Familiarity with the vendor landscape, from learning management systems to OPMs to student support platforms. And the ability to work with academic leaders who may be skeptical of online education’s value.

The best leaders in this space understand that faculty trust is not given, it’s built. It gets built by doing the work alongside the people you’re leading, not by issuing directives from a distance. It gets built by being honest about tradeoffs and realistic about timelines. And it gets built by genuinely caring whether the institution succeeds, not just whether the engagement goes smoothly.

There’s a concept in Sanskrit called ‘mudita’, sometimes translated as sympathetic joy, the genuine happiness you feel in someone else’s success. It’s an unusual thing to bring up in a professional context. But I think it describes something real about what the best people in this field carry into their work. When your institution launches a new program, they celebrate. When your team members get recognized, they cheer. There’s no ego in it. Your success is genuinely their joy. That disposition is hard to fake over time, and it makes a real difference in the quality of the work.

The Bottom Line

The Chief Online Learning Officer role is relatively young by higher education standards. The title didn’t exist in any formal sense until the last decade. But the need for this kind of integrated, accountable leadership has been building for much longer.

If your institution has online programs, or wants to have them, someone should be accountable for the whole picture. The question is what that looks like given your resources and your goals.

What questions do you have about the COLO role? I’m glad to dig into any aspect of this in a follow-up.

Questions? Feel free to reach out: jeremiah@fractionalcolo.com I promise I’ll get back to you.

Academic leaders see the strategic need for online programs. CFOs see a more complicated picture: upfront costs that hit the budget immediately, loan restrictions that limit options, and boards expecting faster returns than online programs can deliver. Understanding your specific financial situation before you commit to a direction helps you choose a funding approach that matches your institution’s reality.

For this article, I sat down with Joe Botana, a seasoned higher education CFO with experience at multiple small and mid-sized institutions. Joe has navigated the financial realities of building new programs while managing tight budgets, loan restrictions, and board expectations. What follows is grounded in how these decisions actually play out, not how they look in a spreadsheet.

Why Colleges Can’t Fund Online Programs Like Corporations Fund New Products

When a company develops a new product, it can treat those development costs as an investment and spread them over several years on its financial statements. Colleges can’t do that. Under standard accounting rules, marketing expenses, faculty training, and instructional design work all must show up immediately as expenses, even though you’re building something that will generate revenue for years.

As Joe plainly stated: “You can wave your fist at the sky, but GAAP is GAAP.” GAAP stands for Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, the standard rules that govern how colleges and universities report their finances. Because of these rules, institutions can’t simply treat the first year or two of online program investment the way a technology company might treat R&D. Every dollar spent on launch shows up as an expense in the year it’s spent.

This matters practically because many institutions have loan agreements that require them to maintain certain financial ratios. When all your launch costs hit the books at once, that can put pressure on ratios your bank or bond covenant requires you to maintain. We will get into what that means in the next section.

Know Your Constraints Before You Pick a Funding Strategy

Before exploring funding options, your CFO needs honest answers to a few foundational questions. Do your loan agreements or bond covenants restrict how much additional debt you can take on? How much cushion do you have in your current financial ratios? Will your board support an investment that shows losses in Year 1? Do you have reserves you can actually access?

Joe walked me through a common scenario. An institution might have a bond covenant requiring them to maintain a debt service coverage ratio of at least 1.25 (meaning their revenue covers their debt payments by at least 125%). If they are currently sitting at 1.29, they do not have much room. A $300,000 to $400,000 investment that is treated as expenses in the statement of activities and creates short-term losses could drop them to 1.22, which puts them in violation of their loan terms.

That does not mean it is impossible. Banks and bondholders can grant covenant waivers, especially when you come to them with a credible plan. But you need to know where you stand before you start making commitments.

Some institutions have significant flexibility. Others are operating within tight constraints. You need to know which category you are in, and your CFO is the right person to make that assessment.

Six Ways to Fund Your Online Programs

There is no single right answer here. The best funding approach depends on your institution’s specific financial situation. Here are seven options Joe and I discussed, each suited to different circumstances.

1. Use Your Reserves

If your institution has set aside money in plant reserves or strategic initiative funds, those could fund online program development. Joe described an institution where he and his president had quietly accumulated a $3 to $3.5 million reserve over several years. When a strategic opportunity came along, they could go to the board and request a draw from that account without taking on new debt. You still need board approval, but you avoid the covenant complications that come with borrowing. This works best for institutions that have been disciplined about building reserves.

2. Reallocate Existing Endowment Resources

This one requires some explanation. Many institutions have endowments that include funds given for specific purposes, like scholarships for students in a particular major or from a particular region. Over time, those funds earn investment income, and often the institution draws less from those funds each year than it is actually spending on that type of support.

Joe offered a helpful example. Say you have an endowment fund established 10 years ago to support accounting scholarships. The original gift was $150,000. Over the years, that fund has earned $80,000 in income. You award one $3,000 scholarship annually from the fund, so you have only drawn $30,000 of the $80,000 in income. Meanwhile, your institution awards $15,000 total in accounting scholarships each year, with $12,000 of that coming from your general operating budget.

In that situation, you could potentially increase your annual draw from the endowment fund from $3,000 to $10,000, funding more of those scholarships from the endowment and freeing up $7,000 annually from the operating budget. That freed-up money could be redirected toward online program development.

This approach requires careful analysis to make sure you are honoring donor intent, and it needs board education and approval. But for institutions with significant endowments, particularly with temporarily restricted unspent endowment income balances, it is worth exploring with your CFO.

3. Fundraise for It

Online education is increasingly a story about access, workforce development, and institutional sustainability, which are themes that resonate with donors. Presenting online program development as a strategic fundraising priority can attract gifts that specifically support this work. Small to mid-sized gifts can add up to meaningful seed funding. This works best for institutions with active development operations and a donor base that understands the institution’s direction.

4. Get a Business Loan from Your Local Bank

Joe made a comparison that stuck with me. A manufacturing company walks into their bank and says they want to buy three new CNC machines. They present a financial projection, answer the bank’s questions, and if the bank thinks it is a good deal, they make a business loan. You can approach your local bank the same way about launching an online program. Present your pro-forma, make the case for why the investment is sound, and ask them to finance it as a specific business loan rather than as general institutional debt. This can sometimes be structured in a way that works around existing covenant restrictions.

5. Explore Non-Bank Financial Firms

Beyond traditional banks, there are non-bank financial firms that specialize in flexible financing options for organizations that may not fit the standard lending criteria. These firms can sometimes offer creative structures that work around the borrowing restrictions that make traditional bank loans difficult. If your institution has covenant constraints that rule out conventional financing, it is worth investigating whether firms like these could offer a workable alternative.

6. Start Smaller and Reinvest

If none of the above options are available in the near term, this does not mean you cannot move forward. Launch one program instead of three. Target 25 students in Year 1 instead of 50. Use whatever revenue and savings you generate in Year 1 to fund expansion in Year 2. The timeline to maturity stretches out, but the financial risk stays manageable. This approach works best for institutions that have some budget flexibility but cannot absorb significant upfront losses.

What Your CFO Needs to See in Your Proposal

Whichever funding path you pursue, your CFO needs to be able to evaluate it as a business proposition. That means coming to them with more than a strategic vision.

• Realistic enrollment projections, including conservative, moderate, and optimistic scenarios

• Honest cost estimates for student recruitment, staffing, technology, and course development

• A clear timeline showing when you break even and when the program becomes profitable

• An honest accounting of operational capacity: who is going to do this work?

Banks and boards respond to credible plans. Showing that you have thought through the risks and have realistic expectations goes a long way.

The Timeline Problem

Online programs take three to five years to reach maturity, but most boards and presidents expect faster results. This creates real tension. Presidents want to see meaningful enrollment before their next contract review. Boards want to see profitability on a two-year horizon. But the financial model does not compress that easily.

In my previous article on launching online programs, I walked through a realistic financial model: Year 1 shows a loss of around $176,000 on a $558,000 investment. Year 2 reaches profitability at 61 students. By Year 5, cumulative net returns exceed $2 million on that initial investment. The math works, but only if you stay the course.

Setting expectations early with your board is not optional. Frame Year 1 as an investment period with defined milestones, not just a loss on the books. Show them what break-even looks like in Year 2 and what the five-year picture looks like if enrollment targets are met. The institutions that abandon online programs after 18 months usually do so because leadership never aligned on what the first two years were supposed to look like financially.

As Joe put it, you need to build the case before you start spending, not after you have already lost money and are trying to explain it.

Should You Move Forward?

Not every institution is in a position to pursue online programs right now, and that is an honest answer worth having before you spend a year in planning mode.

It may be worth waiting if:

• None of the funding approaches are accessible to you in the near term

• You are already close to your covenant limits with little cushion

• Your board is not prepared to support an investment that shows Year 1 losses

• You do not have the operational staff to actually execute the work

• Your institution needs immediate financial returns to stay stable

You are likely ready to move forward if:

• You have a realistic path to funding through at least one of the approaches

• Your CFO has reviewed the pro forma and believes the projections are credible

• You have people in place who can do the operational work, not just a strategic plan

• Your leadership team is aligned on a three to five year timeline to maturity

• You have enough financial cushion to absorb Year 1 losses without triggering covenant issues

Sometimes the right answer is not yet. Stabilize your finances, build your reserves, and come back to this when you have more runway. Starting smaller and building from a position of stability is a better outcome than launching fast and running out of resources in Year 2.

A Few Final Thoughts

The financial path to online education is more nuanced than it looks from the outside. The accounting rules are less flexible than many academic leaders expect. The funding options are more varied than most realize. And the timeline to real returns is longer than everyone wants.

For academic leaders, the most important thing you can do is bring your CFO into the conversation before you start building your strategic plan. Financial constraints are workable in most cases, but only if operations and finance are solving the problem together from the start.

For CFOs, online education deserves the same rigorous evaluation you would apply to any strategic investment. The institutions that approach it that way tend to be the ones that see it through.

I guarantee that if you sit down with your CFO and work through these funding approaches honestly, you will have a much clearer picture of where you stand and what your realistic next step is. You have to start somewhere. Build what you can, assess your progress, and reinvest in what is working.

Jeremiah Grabowski is the founder of Fractional COLO, a consulting company that helps small and mid-sized colleges and universities develop online programs internally. For questions or to connect, reach Jeremiah at jeremiah@fractionalcolo.com.

Joe Botana is a seasoned higher education CFO with experience at multiple small and mid-sized institutions. Joe can be reached at botanajd@gmail.com.

Now imagine if mechanics worked differently. They’d inspect your car from a distance, write a detailed report about the carburetor, present their findings in a polished deck, bill you $15,000, and drive away. You’d have an excellent diagnosis. You’d still be stranded with a broken-down car.

I bet you experienced a similar scenario related to growing or launching online programs. Three months after the strategic plan presentation, the provost stares at another implementation roadmap gathering dust on the shelf. It’s a good plan. Everyone nodded during the presentation. The recommendations align with best practices. The framework mirrors successful programs at peer institutions. But somewhere between the strategy document and actual execution, momentum died.

Why? Not because the strategy was wrong. After 25 years of online education, we know what works. Organizations like the Online Learning Consortium, UPCEA, Quality Matters, and WCET have done the hard work of documenting what successful online programs look like. The playbook exists. Best practices are published. Case studies are everywhere.

The problem isn’t that institutions don’t know what to do. The problem is they need help actually doing it.

The Implementation Gap

When institutions complete strategic assessments, they can usually describe exactly what they need. They know they should have dedicated student support services. They understand the importance of consistent course design standards. They recognize that their transfer credit policies need updating.

They can envision the destination. What they struggle with is the journey. The daily, unglamorous work of actually building those capabilities.

Strategy feels productive. You gather in conference rooms, discuss possibilities, build momentum, and produce polished documents. Implementation is messier. It happens in the trenches. It requires uncomfortable conversations with resistant staff and faculty members. It means sitting with your admissions team for hours rebuilding the CRM workflow.

Implementation reveals the real constraints that strategy glosses over. Your strategic plan says you need “comprehensive online student services,” which sounds achievable in a planning document. Implementation forces you to confront the reality that your student services staff is already maxed out, your systems don’t talk to each other, and nobody has actually defined what “comprehensive” means.

This is why strategic plans gather dust. Nobody planned for the unglamorous work. Nobody protected the time required to do it. Nobody empowered someone to make the daily decisions implementation requires.

How Institutions Can Do This Themselves

As I stated at the beginning, you don’t need to reinvent the wheel. The frameworks exist, the best practices are documented, and other institutions have already solved the problems you’re facing. What you need is a practical approach to implementation. I want to offer some specific ways you can shift from planning to building.

Assign an Implementation Owner

Identify one person who will own implementation, not just strategic planning. This isn’t a committee role. This isn’t something they do in addition to their other duties. This is a person with protected time and real authority to build things.

This person should be measured on implementation progress, not just strategic planning. Their success metrics should be concrete: “We launched the orientation module in preparation for the spring semester” not “We developed an orientation strategy.” They should have the authority to make day-to-day decisions without waiting for committee approvals.

If you can’t carve out someone’s time for this work, you’re not actually committed to implementation. That’s an uncomfortable truth, but it’s better to acknowledge it now than to wonder in six months why nothing has changed.

Start With One Component, Not Everything

If resources are tight, pick one element from your strategic plan and build it completely before moving to the next. Don’t try to improve everything simultaneously. Choose something specific, achievable, and important.

Instead of “we need comprehensive online student services,” define it more specifically: “We’re going to build a functioning orientation process this semester.” Instead of “we need better course design standards,” narrow it to: “We’re going to create and implement a course navigation template for all new online courses.”

Build that one thing completely. Test it. Document what you learned. Train people on how to use it. Get feedback from students. Revise based on what you discover. Only then move to the next component.

This approach feels slower than trying to fix everything at once. But it’s actually faster because things actually get finished. You build momentum through completed work, not ongoing initiatives.

Work Alongside Your Team

If you’re the leader pushing for online program development, you need to be willing to do some of the implementation work yourself. Not because your team can’t do it, but because working alongside people builds trust, reveals real constraints, and models the approach you’re asking for.

Schedule time to sit with your admissions staff and actually work on the lead management process together. Join the instructional designer for a faculty course development meeting instead of just hearing about it later. Participate in troubleshooting the registration system issue rather than just asking for a status update.

This doesn’t mean you do everyone’s job. It means you understand the work well enough to support it effectively. When you’ve personally experienced the frustration of a broken system, you’re more likely to prioritize fixing it. When you’ve sat through a difficult conversation with resistant faculty, you better understand what your instructional designers face daily.

The added benefit is that your team sees you’re serious about implementation. Actions speak louder than strategic documents.

Borrow Shamelessly From Others

Other institutions have already solved most of the problems you’re facing. Don’t start from scratch when you can adapt what works elsewhere.

Reach out to other institutions and ask about a particular piece of their online operations. Most people in higher education are remarkably generous with their time and knowledge. If they are in your area, buy someone lunch, and ask them to show you their student support model or their course development process. Ask if you can take notes.

Join communities like the Online Learning Consortium or UPCEA and ask questions. These organizations exist specifically to share best practices. Participate in discussion forums, attend webinars, and reach out to presenters after conference sessions.

Find someone doing what you want to do and ask if you can adapt their approach. Most people are flattered you asked and happy to share. It won’t be as easy as copy/paste. You might need to adjust their solution to fit your context, but that’s much faster than inventing something new.

The point isn’t to copy everything exactly. The point is to start with what works somewhere else and adapt it, rather than starting with a blank page.

Protect Implementation Time

Don’t let strategic planning crowd out implementation work. This is surprisingly easy to do. Strategic planning feels important. It involves leadership. It produces documents. Implementation feels like operational detail that can wait until after the next planning meeting.

Build protected time into your calendar for implementation work. If you are a leader, give your team permission to block hours each week that are dedicated to building, not planning. Treat these blocks as seriously as you’d treat a meeting with your president.

Make space for unglamorous work. Someone needs time to test the registration system, review course shells one by one, and call students who dropped to understand why. This work won’t happen if everyone’s calendar is packed with strategic meetings.

Celebrate implementation milestones as much as strategic decisions. When your team launches the orientation module, make a bigger deal about that than about approving the strategic plan. What you celebrate signals what you value. If you only celebrate planning achievements, you’ll get more planning and less implementation.

Measure What Matters

Track implementation progress, not just strategic planning progress. Your metrics should reflect actual building, not just planning activities.

Bad metric: “We held six strategic planning meetings this semester.” Good metric: “We launched three new student support processes and served 127 students through them.”

Bad metric: “We developed a comprehensive course design framework.” Good metric: “We designed and delivered 12 courses using our new framework, and our C, D, F, W-rate went down by 5%.”

Bad metric: “We created a marketing strategy.” Good metric: “We generated 340 qualified leads through our new landing page.”

When you measure implementation rather than planning, people focus on building rather than documenting their intentions to build.

Getting Started This Week

You don’t need to wait for the perfect moment to begin. Pick something and start building.

Choose one specific aspect of your online operations to improve. Not “improve the student experience.” Instead pick “establish a consistent course navigation structure across all online courses.”

Block five hours on your calendar for next week to work on it, and invite one team member to work alongside you. Don’t delegate it, do it together.

Set a 30-day implementation goal. Something you can point to and say “this exists now and it didn’t exist before.”

Examples:

• “We will update all online program pages to include upcoming start dates, tuition information, and time to completion”

• “We will have completed and tested our online student orientation module with at least ten students.”

• “We will have documented our course design workflow with faculty and completed three courses using the new process.”

At the end of 30 days, you should have something built, not just something planned. Even if it’s imperfect. Even if it needs revision. Something real that serves real students.

Then pick the next thing and repeat the process.

The mechanic who fixes your car doesn’t just have knowledge, they have the willingness to get their hands dirty and do the work. Your institution has everything, or mostly everything, it needs to start. You don’t need to figure out what to do. You need to protect the time, assign the responsibility, and do the actual work of implementation.

Next week, pick one thing. Block the time. Invite your team. Lift the hood and get started.

Your students are waiting.

What implementation challenge is your institution facing? I’d love to hear what you’re working on. Drop me a note at jeremiah@fractionalcolo.com or connect with me on LinkedIn.

The Beginning: More Support Than Expected

Out of the gate, I was blown away by the support I received from the higher ed community. In those first few weeks, I averaged two or three meetings a day. Interest came from every direction: people I knew, potential partner schools, old colleagues, and new connections. I honestly didn’t expect that level of response, but it reinforced my belief in this fractional model and the real need for affordable support for institutions.

Summer: A Whirlwind of Travel and New Connections

The summer turned into a whirlwind of travel and learning. I had the opportunity to present at the EduVentures conference, met my new colleagues at Shepherd University, and spent some time in Shepherdstown, WV. If you’ve never been to that part of WV, it’s exactly what you picture when you think of a college town, tons of great shops and restaurants where everything centers around the institution.

I also presented at the RNL conference and attended the National Small College Enrollment conference. At each event, I was fortunate to connect with dozens of new people and started building a new community of colleagues. Before launching, I was honestly worried about feeling isolated if I wasn’t in the office everyday. Like everyone, I value those longstanding relationships built over the years. Would I miss out on those relationships if I wasn’t physically there? Could I build new ones? It felt a bit like the kid who moves to a different school district, wondering if I’d make new friends.

I’m happy to report those concerns have largely disappeared. Everyone in higher ed is mission-driven, and “in it” for the right reasons. Now I am able to see more of it and from different vantage points. I continue to be impressed by the incredibly intelligent, experienced people I’m meeting who genuinely want to help institutions. There are so many types of institutions with different needs. It’s about finding the right fit, aligning on values, and understanding where an institution wants to go. Some want to move fast, others a bit more cautiously. But everyone wants to see their institution succeed.

Fall: Watching Others Succeed

As the fall semester kicked off, I read exciting news from my former colleagues at D’Youville. They reported massive enrollment success and surpassed their goals. Someone once told me you always want to leave a place better than you found it. I certainly hope that’s the case, and it’s encouraging to know my departure created opportunities for others. Watching them take on those opportunities, grow their vision, and develop their leadership has been wonderful to see and very heartwarming. Talented people getting an opportunity to shine. What’s better than that?.

The Reality Check: It’s Not All Rainbows and Butterflies

As my wife likes to say, it’s not all rainbows and butterflies. Without going into details, please know it has not been a walk in the park. There have been months where cash flow is lean. You “get the opportunity” to experience things you don’t have to think about with a steady job: quarterly taxes, net 30-day payments, and juggling short-term and long-term planning. The financial stress is real. Good thing I squirreled away a rainy day fund.

If you’re considering a similar move, please know the stress doesn’t disappear. It just changes form. For me, six months in, the tradeoff has been worth it.

Lessons Learned

After reflecting on the last six months, I’ve come up with the following lessons learned.

Freedom is everything. I thought I would like working for myself, but truth be told, I absolutely love it. I love the freedom and creativity it provides. I can take on new projects, work with anyone I want, test out new ideas, and see how the marketplace responds. It’s a very different world from the bureaucracy that sometimes plagues higher ed. I have a couple of cool project ideas that will (hopefully) come to fruition in the next year. Seeing something from idea, to execution, to market response is incredibly energizing and rewarding.

Along with professional freedom comes the freedom to be more present for my family. Individually, these moments are small. Day to day, it looks like taking one to karate or the other to swim. Or not asking Ashley to take a day off because one got sick in the middle of the night. But summed up over six months, it’s hard to quantify, but I know it’s a net gain. Maybe it’s me, but being around your kids is pretty cool (most of the time, anyway).

The stress just shifts. I mentioned this one earlier. You don’t eliminate stress by going out on your own. You trade it for new kinds: taxes, health insurance (don’t get me started), invoicing, cash flow, and long-term financial planning. Maybe it’s because I chose them, but these stresses feel different.

Travel has been incredible. In six months, I’ve traveled to eight different states, some of them twice. I’ve been able to see family, connect with new colleagues, and present at conferences. Conference sessions are valuable, but the real magic is in those hallway conversations. Along the way I’ve gained a lot of interest in this fractional model. Every conversation and referral increases my motivation and confidence.

New tools matter. When you’re the chief everything officer, you’re more willing to try new things to maximize your time and responsiveness to clients. Tools like Wispr Flow have saved me hours each week. You can articulate things much faster by talking than typing, and it’s so much easier to edit text than start from scratch.

Play the long game. Part of my dissertation research was on gamification and one of my favorite books is The Infinite Game by Simon Sinek, so I tend to view things through a game-like lens. Most people don’t know that I spent 18 months planning before I launched this company. I didn’t have a Jerry Maguire meltdown, or “who’s coming with me” moment. Both of which probably would have led to failure, to be honest.

If anyone out there has an idea they can’t shake, I’m more than happy to jump on a call and talk through my experience. Remember, you don’t have to do it all at once, you just need to get a “first down.” It’s like football. Get a first down, then get the next first down. Don’t throw the Hail Mary pass. Just get 10 yards.

For me, that looked like waking up an hour early every day. Me and my coffee, figuring out what it takes to form an LLC in New York State, developing budgets and pro formas, writing website copy. An hour a day, five days a week, over 12 months, that adds up to a lot. Take that hour, get caffeinated, and start planning. Do something this month. You’d be amazed at how much those wins stack up.

This fractional model works. I hope my partner schools and colleagues would agree, but I can see we’re making real, tangible progress. I was worried that I might not be able to make an impact as a fractional employee or build meaningful relationships. I’ve seen evidence that even in this capacity, I can still help folks on an individual basis. At the end of the day, that’s very rewarding and one of the reasons I do what I do.

What I’m Thankful For

As we head into Thanksgiving, I want to close with what I’m grateful for.

I’m thankful for the higher ed community. If I listed everyone I’ve talked to in the last six months, we’d be here all day. I’m beyond grateful to everyone who has reached out, made connections, said kind words, or helped me in some way.

I’m thankful for old colleagues and new. It’s the people who make things happen and get the work done. Our community is filled with genuine people who care and want to make an impact.

Lastly, I’m thankful for my family. Leaving a steady career you’ve built over 20 years is scary. If you’re in a relationship, you better have a partner who comes alongside you, believes in you, and is willing to take that risk. It’s a huge risk when you have family, kids, a mortgage, and real responsibilities. Being transparent with your partner and making sure you’re on the same page and supporting one another is essential. You can’t do this without that kind of support at home.

Looking Forward

So where am I now? Six months in, I’m energized, grateful, and excited for what’s ahead. The fractional C.O.L.O. model works for higher ed. Small and mid-sized institutions need affordable, mission-focused support to navigate their online strategies.

If you’re at an institution exploring your options or you’re someone considering a similar leap, let’s connect. I promise I’ll pick up the phone (or jump on a Zoom call).

Happy Thanksgiving, everyone. Looking forward to the next six months.

During the episode, hosts Kelvin Thompson and Tom Cavanagh dig into the CHLOE, BOnES, and Pan-Canadian digital learning reports, which reveal something that I write about often, which is the gap between leadership’s ambitions and operational reality when it comes to online learning. They also discussed Glenda Morgan’s article “Great Expectations, Fragile Foundations“ which examines why institutional leaders keep setting ambitious online learning targets like ‘$75 million in online revenue within 10 years’ or ‘65 online programs in five years’ without understanding what those goals actually require.

My “wheels” eventually stopped turning when I hit on the idea of, what are WE (the online learning community) doing to build relationships with Presidents and Provosts so they better understand OUR perspective? What if “we” started that process before they became Presidents or Provosts? I know there are programs which help to prepare future Presidents and Provosts for those roles. What if “we” were able to contribute to President and Provost leadership academies? Could that help prepare the next generation of presidents and provosts to understand what it takes to build quality online programs?

The Problem Isn’t Ambition

When a new president announces they want to triple online enrollment in three years, it’s not because they’re reckless. It’s (probably) because no one ever showed them that online learning is an ecosystem, not a product launch. In most cases, they haven’t spent their career working with people who actually understand how that ecosystem works. They spent their formative leadership years coming up through a traditional system.

Chances are they don’t see the interconnected web of infrastructure, policy, faculty development, student support, and technology that has to work together to deliver quality. They don’t see it because they’ve never worked closely with instructional designers, online student success coaches, or digital marketing specialists. All those roles didn’t exist 15-20 years ago.

One stat that caught my ear was that Morgan’s research found that only 28% of faculty are fully prepared to design online courses. At the same time, how many leaders are hesitant to hire an instructional designer.

My favorite quote from the podcast came from Tom when he observed, we risk having our technical ability to deliver online instruction “outrun the quality supply lines that feed it.” It conjures a visual of people frantically laying down railroad tracks, trying desperately to stay ahead of the steam engine barreling toward them.

The Holistic Nature of Online Learning

Here’s what I wish every leadership academy would help future leaders understand: Higher ed needs high-quality online education to survive. Online learning isn’t a thing you do, it’s a system you build.

It requires:

Vision and Leadership means integrating online learning into strategic planning, establishing governance structures, ensuring regulatory compliance, and allocating resources that match ambition.

Dedicated Online Structure is having an organizational home for online learning with real authority.

Student Support Services for online learners are fundamentally different: dedicated admissions, 24/7 technical assistance, advising that understands accelerated formats, orientations designed for remote learners.

Marketing and Website Strategy means comprehensive digital marketing, microsites with lead capture automation. Understanding that student acquisition costs continually increase year over year.

Flexible Program Structure means multiple start dates, consistent course availability, and removing arbitrary barriers.

Course Development and Instructional Design means established procedures, quality standards like Quality Matters, and actual instructional designers working with faculty. If you’ve never collaborated with instructional designers, you probably don’t know that 95% of them are rock stars who can transform a mediocre course into an engaging learning experience!

Faculty Development means comprehensive training, ongoing professional development, technical assistance, and recognizing online teaching excellence in promotion and tenure.

All of these interconnected components need to work together in unison.

What Leadership Academies Should Include

No one asked me, but...if I were designing curriculum for a future leaders academy, here’s what I’d include:

Understanding the Ecosystem – How the interdependent components work together and why you can’t cherry-pick a few areas and expect success. How to assess institutional readiness holistically rather than assuming “we survived COVID, so we’re ready.”

Real Economics and Timelines – Student acquisition costs in 2025, what quality instructional design actually costs, why a two-year path to profitability is normal, and how to build realistic budgets that match growth ambitions.

Infrastructure Assessment – How to evaluate what you actually have versus what you need. Understanding technology integration requirements. Creating realistic timelines based on current capacity.

Quality and Student Experience – What quality frameworks like Quality Matters mean. Why instructional designers aren’t optional. How online learners are different from traditional students and why support services need fundamental redesign.

Cultural and Market Realities – Why emergency remote instruction ≠ intentionally designed online learning. How to build faculty buy-in. Understanding how saturated the market actually is and what that means for your strategy.

Starting the Conversation (and the Relationships) Earlier

By the time someone becomes a president or provost, they’ve spent their entire career building relationships with traditional faculty, development officers, and board members. Rarely is it with the professionals who understand online learning.

We need to start earlier. When someone serves as department chair, they should spend time with instructional designers understanding course development. When someone becomes a dean, they should build working relationships with online student services, digital marketing, and enrollment management. When someone joins a provost’s cabinet, they should have regular dialogue with online learning leadership.

Once you understand the holistic nature of online learning, you see how components interconnect and you can’t unsee it.

One of my favorite questions is: “If you had a magic wand, what would you do?” My magic wand would help leaders across academia acknowledge that online learning is complex, strategic work that requires sophisticated understanding.

“Let’s Land the Plane” (To Borrow from TOPCast)

Can you build successful online programs? Absolutely.

Can you do it by treating online learning as a product launch rather than an ecosystem requiring holistic planning and collaborative relationships? Not so much, and the data proves it.

Should we be preparing future presidents and provosts to understand this complexity and to build relationships with online learning professionals before they take office? Without question.

Are we actually doing it? Not yet. But we could.

Serving as a President or Provost is more complex than it’s ever been. There are countless initiatives competing for their attention. But for most of higher ed, online learning isn’t just one initiative among many, it’s the only area showing real growth. It’s how institutions will survive the enrollment cliff. It’s how they’ll serve the students who are actually coming to college.

If I could make a plea to those who develop leadership development programs: Let us in the room. There are countless Chief Online Learning Officers, instructional design directors, online student services professionals, and digital enrollment strategists who would jump at the opportunity to share their expertise with future academic leaders. We’re not asking for a full year bootcamp. We’re asking for a seat at the table where you’re preparing the people who will lead our institutions.

And here’s my challenge to the online learning community: Stop waiting to be invited. Reach out to your provost and ask to spend an hour with the new incoming cohort of department chairs. Offer to do a lunch-and-learn for deans about what it actually takes to scale online learning. Build those relationships now, before the next president arrives on campus with great expectations and fragile foundations.

The conversation needs to start earlier. The relationships need to be built sooner. And the time to begin is now. The next generation of academic leaders is being shaped today, with or without our input.

I’d rather it be with.

What’s your experience with leadership preparedness for the holistic nature of online learning? How do we build relationships between emerging academic leaders and online learning professionals earlier in their careers? I’d genuinely love to hear your thoughts. Email me at jeremiah@fractionalcolo.com

Before I jump in and give my answer, let me preface this by saying my experience has been developing online programs internally, primarily using existing university resources to pilot programs and then reinvesting that money to fund subsequent years growth.

I believe, yes, you can launch a sustainable online program for approximately half a million dollars. But—and this is crucial—only if you understand exactly what that investment should cover and what realistic expectations look like in today's competitive market.

After helping multiple institutions navigate online program launches, I've learned that success isn't about having the biggest budget; it's about having a solid playbook and a clear understanding of where every dollar should go.

The $7,000 Reality Check

Before we dive into budget specifics, let's address the elephant in the room: student acquisition costs. This is another third rail where I'm sure there can be a lot of debate. For the purposes of this article, we're just going to use $7,000 as napkin math we can work from. It might be a little high, it might be a little low, but for the sake of argument we will go with it.

Again, we can debate this number, and 5-7-years ago the range was $3,000-5,000, but we'll go higher because the reality is everyone is competing in a saturated market where students have countless options and it doesn't seem to be slowing down. This figure encompasses everything related to marketing your online programs, developing creative, digital ads, paid search, etc.

Using a higher number as a baseline allows for realistic planning. If your goal is to enroll 25 students in Year 1, budget $175,000 for student acquisition. If you're targeting 50 students, plan for $350,000. If after the first year your actual acquisition costs are much lower, then you look good to your CFO.

What $558,000 Actually Buys You

In this exercise we're actually going to be a bit over the half million mark ($558k). This is an area where each institution is different, and the numbers are primarily based on performing this work internally, either by bringing in a few key staff members, repurposing existing staff, or outsourcing when you have no internal capacity. Your individual institutional preferences will obviously vary.

Infrastructure and Technology: $30,000

Rather than purchasing expensive new systems, smart launches leverage existing institutional infrastructure. If needed, I factored in money for some CRM marketing automation to help with lead management ($20,000), and compliance requirements including accreditation and state authorization fees ($10,000).

I didn't add in the Learning Management System costs. Most institutions already have an LMS capable of supporting online programs. Also absent at this phase is 24/7 technical support, which hopefully your existing IT staff can handle for a manageable cohort size of 25-50 students.

Staffing and Operations: $305,500

At any institution, personnel represent your largest investment, and for good reason. Quality online programs require dedicated expertise, especially during this critical launch phase. I assume a 30% salary and benefit increase to show real numbers.

Online Program Director ($80,000 – $104k w/ benefits): Oversees all program operations, faculty coordination, and strategic planning. This person becomes your single point of accountability.

Instructional Designer ($70,000 – $91k w/ benefits): Ensures course quality and pedagogical soundness. This role is non-negotiable. If needed, this can be outsourced. There are a lot of high-quality ID firms out there. Faculty subject matter expertise plus instructional design expertise equals effective online courses.

Online Admissions ($55,000 – $71k w/ benefits): Manages lead conversion, enrollment processes, and student communication. Remember that $7,000 acquisition cost? A good admissions staff will help you drive down that cost.

Student Success Coach ($30,000 for 0.5 FTE – $39k w/ benefits): Provides academic advising and retention support. Online students need different support than traditional students. With a small incoming cohort, you may be able to start with a part-time hire.

Program Development: $28,000

Creating six courses at $3,000 each provides a solid foundation for program launch. This per-course cost assumes a streamlined development process using your subject matter experts working hand-in-hand with your ID. They are focusing on essential learning outcomes rather than elaborate multimedia production.

Faculty training and development ($10,000) covers online pedagogy basics. In year one we probably need to upskill a handful of faculty with essential skills. I would look to organizations like Quality Matters or the Online Learning Consortium and focus on what faculty actually need to know.

Student Acquisition: $175,000

As discussed, this represents the cost to enroll 25 students at $7,000 each. This budget supports both digital advertising campaigns and the marketing activities necessary to convert prospects into enrolled students.

Contingency and Miscellaneous: $20,000

Because something always costs more than expected, and professional development opportunities will arise.

The Numbers That Matter

With 25 enrolled students generating $15,300 each in annual tuition revenue (based on 18 credits at $850 per credit hour), Year 1 gross revenue reaches $382,500. After the $558,500 investment, in this scenario the program shows a $176,000 loss in Year 1. Unfortunately, that is a common scenario and should be expected.

This isn't a failure; it's an investment. You're building infrastructure, developing courses, hiring staff, developing internal capacity, and establishing market presence. The program breaks even at 37 enrolled students, which becomes your Year 2 minimum target.

Year 2: Where Profitability Emerges

Year 2 operations require $773,500 to support 61 students (40 new enrollments plus 21 continuing students from Year 1, accounting for 85% retention), generating $933,300 in revenue and $159,800 in net profit. This marks the transition to profitability and validates the investment approach.

This growth from 25 to 61 students represents the scaling challenge and opportunity of online education. Your marketing investment increases to support 40 new student acquisitions, but your infrastructure costs remain relatively stable while adding essential capacity.

The Five-Year Strategic View

While the first two years establish your foundation and prove viability, the five-year outlook demonstrates the true value of this investment approach. By Year 5, accounting for realistic graduation cycles (students complete their programs in 2.5 years) and 85% retention rates throughout their studies, your program portfolio generates $2.3 million in annual revenue while producing a steady stream of graduates.

The cumulative five-year net profit reaches $2.1 million, representing a 431% return on the initial investment. More importantly, by Year 5 you've graduated 45 students while maintaining 152 actively enrolled students across multiple program offerings. This creates both immediate financial returns and long-term institutional value through alumni networks and market reputation.

The model accounts for the realistic dynamics of graduate education: students don't accumulate indefinitely, but rather cycle through 2.5-year programs. This means your Year 1 cohort graduates in Year 4, requiring increased recruitment efforts to maintain growth trajectory. These operational realities are built into the financial projections, providing presidents with credible long-term planning numbers.

What Half a Million Doesn't Buy

A $558,500 budget delivers a solid, sustainable program launch but not premium features:

• Elaborate course production with Hollywood-style video

• Extensive support infrastructure beyond essential services

• Comprehensive brand campaigns rather than focused digital marketing

• Cutting-edge technology platforms rather than functional systems

These limitations aren't necessarily problems. Many successful online programs started with similar constraints and added premium features as enrollment and revenue grew. The key is building a foundation for quality and growth, not trying to launch with every bell and whistle.

Your Break-Even Point

The most important number in this entire budget is 37, which is the number of students you need to break even in Year 1. Miss this target, and your losses increase. Exceed it, and you start building toward sustainability earlier than projected.

Year 2 requires 50 students to break even, making your 61-student target realistic but not comfortable. This creates the right tension of achievable goals that still require focused execution.

Making It Happen

As I stated at the beginning, the question isn't whether you can launch an online program for half a million dollars, you can. The real questions are whether your institution has the patience for a two-year path to profitability and the vision to see five-year returns that justify the strategic investment.

The five-year projections show that sustainable online programs require investment before they generate returns, but those returns compound significantly over time. By Year 5, you're not just running a profitable program—you're operating a revenue engine that generates nearly $900,000 in annual profit while fulfilling your educational mission.

For leaders who are ready to move beyond endless planning discussions to actual program launch, half a million dollars represents a realistic investment in your institution's future. The question isn't whether it's profitable in month six, it's whether you're building something sustainable for years six, sixteen, and beyond.

The choice is yours. You can spend another year studying the question, or you can spend the next year building the solution.

For those who want to dive into the numbers, there is a more detailed budget breakdown below.

Complete 5-Year Online Program Launch Budget

Budget Assumptions

• Student acquisition cost: $7,000 per enrolled student

• Average annual tuition revenue: $15,300 per student (18 credits × $850/credit)

• Program completion time: 2.5 years

• Student retention rate: 85% annually

• Conservative enrollment targets: 25 students Year 1, scaling to support multiple programs

• Program scope: Launch of first online program with infrastructure for portfolio expansion

5-Year Enrollment and Revenue Projections

*Graduates: Students who started 2.5 years prior (Year 1 cohort graduates in Year 4, Year 2 cohort graduates in Year 5)

Total New Students Over 5 Years: 245 students Year 5 Active Enrollment: 152 students Total 5-Year Revenue: $7,129,800 Total Graduates by Year 5: 45 students

Year 1 Budget

Year 1 Total Investment: $558,500

Year 1 Revenue: $382,500

Year 1 Net Result: ($176,000)

Year 2 Budget

Year 2 Operating Budget: $773,500

Year 2 Revenue: $933,300 (61 students)

Year 2 Net Result: $159,800

Years 3-5 Summary Budgets

If you ask the following question to ten people, you'll probably get eleven responses. It's one that a lot of people have some pretty strong feelings about. It's also one that is a little bit of a black box which I think scares a lot of presidents and provosts into analysis paralysis. So I wanted to put it out there and ask the question, "What does it cost to launch an online program?"

Before I jump in and give my answer, let me preface this by saying my experience has been developing online programs internally, primarily using existing university resources to pilot programs and then reinvesting that money to fund subsequent years growth.

I believe, yes, you can launch a sustainable online program for approximately half a million dollars. But—and this is crucial—only if you understand exactly what that investment should cover and what realistic expectations look like in today's competitive market.

After helping multiple institutions navigate online program launches, I've learned that success isn't about having the biggest budget; it's about having a solid playbook and a clear understanding of where every dollar should go.

The $7,000 Reality Check

Before we dive into budget specifics, let's address the elephant in the room: student acquisition costs. This is another third rail where I'm sure there can be a lot of debate. For the purposes of this article, we're just going to use $7,000 as napkin math we can work from. It might be a little high, it might be a little low, but for the sake of argument we will go with it.

Again, we can debate this number, and 5-7-years ago the range was $3,000-5,000, but we'll go higher because the reality is everyone is competing in a saturated market where students have countless options and it doesn't seem to be slowing down. This figure encompasses everything related to marketing your online programs, developing creative, digital ads, paid search, etc.

Using a higher number as a baseline allows for realistic planning. If your goal is to enroll 25 students in Year 1, budget $175,000 for student acquisition. If you're targeting 50 students, plan for $350,000. If after the first year your actual acquisition costs are much lower, then you look good to your CFO.

What $558,000 Actually Buys You

In this exercise we're actually going to be a bit over the half million mark ($558k). This is an area where each institution is different, and the numbers are primarily based on performing this work internally, either by bringing in a few key staff members, repurposing existing staff, or outsourcing when you have no internal capacity. Your individual institutional preferences will obviously vary.

Infrastructure and Technology: $30,000

Rather than purchasing expensive new systems, smart launches leverage existing institutional infrastructure. If needed, I factored in money for some CRM marketing automation to help with lead management ($20,000), and compliance requirements including accreditation and state authorization fees ($10,000).

I didn't add in the Learning Management System costs. Most institutions already have an LMS capable of supporting online programs. Also absent at this phase is 24/7 technical support, which hopefully your existing IT staff can handle for a manageable cohort size of 25-50 students.

Staffing and Operations: $305,500

At any institution, personnel represent your largest investment, and for good reason. Quality online programs require dedicated expertise, especially during this critical launch phase. I assume a 30% salary and benefit increase to show real numbers.

Online Program Director ($80,000 – $104k w/ benefits): Oversees all program operations, faculty coordination, and strategic planning. This person becomes your single point of accountability.

Instructional Designer ($70,000 – $91k w/ benefits): Ensures course quality and pedagogical soundness. This role is non-negotiable. If needed, this can be outsourced. There are a lot of high-quality ID firms out there. Faculty subject matter expertise plus instructional design expertise equals effective online courses.

Online Admissions ($55,000 – $71k w/ benefits): Manages lead conversion, enrollment processes, and student communication. Remember that $7,000 acquisition cost? A good admissions staff will help you drive down that cost.

Student Success Coach ($30,000 for 0.5 FTE – $39k w/ benefits): Provides academic advising and retention support. Online students need different support than traditional students. With a small incoming cohort, you may be able to start with a part-time hire.

Program Development: $28,000

Creating six courses at $3,000 each provides a solid foundation for program launch. This per-course cost assumes a streamlined development process using your subject matter experts working hand-in-hand with your ID. They are focusing on essential learning outcomes rather than elaborate multimedia production.

Faculty training and development ($10,000) covers online pedagogy basics. In year one we probably need to upskill a handful of faculty with essential skills. I would look to organizations like Quality Matters or the Online Learning Consortium and focus on what faculty actually need to know.

Student Acquisition: $175,000

As discussed, this represents the cost to enroll 25 students at $7,000 each. This budget supports both digital advertising campaigns and the marketing activities necessary to convert prospects into enrolled students.

Contingency and Miscellaneous: $20,000

Because something always costs more than expected, and professional development opportunities will arise.

The Numbers That Matter

With 25 enrolled students generating $15,300 each in annual tuition revenue (based on 18 credits at $850 per credit hour), Year 1 gross revenue reaches $382,500. After the $558,500 investment, in this scenario the program shows a $176,000 loss in Year 1. Unfortunately, that is a common scenario and should be expected.

This isn't a failure; it's an investment. You're building infrastructure, developing courses, hiring staff, developing internal capacity, and establishing market presence. The program breaks even at 37 enrolled students, which becomes your Year 2 minimum target.

Year 2: Where Profitability Emerges

Year 2 operations require $773,500 to support 61 students (40 new enrollments plus 21 continuing students from Year 1, accounting for 85% retention), generating $933,300 in revenue and $159,800 in net profit. This marks the transition to profitability and validates the investment approach.

This growth from 25 to 61 students represents the scaling challenge and opportunity of online education. Your marketing investment increases to support 40 new student acquisitions, but your infrastructure costs remain relatively stable while adding essential capacity.

The Five-Year Strategic View

While the first two years establish your foundation and prove viability, the five-year outlook demonstrates the true value of this investment approach. By Year 5, accounting for realistic graduation cycles (students complete their programs in 2.5 years) and 85% retention rates throughout their studies, your program portfolio generates $2.3 million in annual revenue while producing a steady stream of graduates.

The cumulative five-year net profit reaches $2.1 million, representing a 431% return on the initial investment. More importantly, by Year 5 you've graduated 45 students while maintaining 152 actively enrolled students across multiple program offerings. This creates both immediate financial returns and long-term institutional value through alumni networks and market reputation.

The model accounts for the realistic dynamics of graduate education: students don't accumulate indefinitely, but rather cycle through 2.5-year programs. This means your Year 1 cohort graduates in Year 4, requiring increased recruitment efforts to maintain growth trajectory. These operational realities are built into the financial projections, providing presidents with credible long-term planning numbers.

What Half a Million Doesn't Buy

A $558,500 budget delivers a solid, sustainable program launch but not premium features:

• Elaborate course production with Hollywood-style video

• Extensive support infrastructure beyond essential services

• Comprehensive brand campaigns rather than focused digital marketing

• Cutting-edge technology platforms rather than functional systems

These limitations aren't necessarily problems. Many successful online programs started with similar constraints and added premium features as enrollment and revenue grew. The key is building a foundation for quality and growth, not trying to launch with every bell and whistle.

Your Break-Even Point

The most important number in this entire budget is 37, which is the number of students you need to break even in Year 1. Miss this target, and your losses increase. Exceed it, and you start building toward sustainability earlier than projected.

Year 2 requires 50 students to break even, making your 61-student target realistic but not comfortable. This creates the right tension of achievable goals that still require focused execution.

Making It Happen

As I stated at the beginning, the question isn't whether you can launch an online program for half a million dollars, you can. The real questions are whether your institution has the patience for a two-year path to profitability and the vision to see five-year returns that justify the strategic investment.

The five-year projections show that sustainable online programs require investment before they generate returns, but those returns compound significantly over time. By Year 5, you're not just running a profitable program—you're operating a revenue engine that generates nearly $900,000 in annual profit while fulfilling your educational mission.

For leaders who are ready to move beyond endless planning discussions to actual program launch, half a million dollars represents a realistic investment in your institution's future. The question isn't whether it's profitable in month six, it's whether you're building something sustainable for years six, sixteen, and beyond.

The choice is yours. You can spend another year studying the question, or you can spend the next year building the solution.

For those who want to dive into the numbers, there is a more detailed budget breakdown below.

Complete 5-Year Online Program Launch Budget

Budget Assumptions

• Student acquisition cost: $7,000 per enrolled student

• Average annual tuition revenue: $15,300 per student (18 credits × $850/credit)

• Program completion time: 2.5 years

• Student retention rate: 85% annually

• Conservative enrollment targets: 25 students Year 1, scaling to support multiple programs

• Program scope: Launch of first online program with infrastructure for portfolio expansion

5-Year Enrollment and Revenue Projections

*Graduates: Students who started 2.5 years prior (Year 1 cohort graduates in Year 4, Year 2 cohort graduates in Year 5)

Total New Students Over 5 Years: 245 students
Year 5 Active Enrollment: 152 students
Total 5-Year Revenue: $7,129,800
Total Graduates by Year 5: 45 students

Year 1 Budget

Year 1 Total Investment: $558,500

Year 1 Revenue: $382,500

Year 1 Net Result: ($176,000)

Year 2 Budget

Year 2 Operating Budget: $773,500

Year 2 Revenue: $933,300 (61 students)

Year 2 Net Result: $159,800

Years 3-5 Summary Budgets

5-Year Financial Summary

Key Performance Indicators

Investment Recovery and Long-Term Value

Break-Even Timeline: The initial investment is fully recovered by midway through Year 3, after which all profits contribute to institutional growth and reinvestment opportunities.

Sustainable Operations: By Year 5, the program generates $895,600 in annual profit while maintaining 152 active students and producing 25 graduates annually. This represents a mature, sustainable operation ready for continued growth.

Total Return on Investment: The $558,500 initial investment generates $2,147,800 in cumulative profit over five years, representing a 431% total return and validating the strategic approach to online program development.

Educational Impact: Beyond financial returns, the program produces 45 graduates by Year 5, creating both immediate institutional value and long-term alumni network benefits that extend far beyond the five-year projection period.

Want to discuss more? Connect with me: jeremiah@fractionalcolo.com

To their credit, most institutions know they need to design courses, invest energy into marketing the program, and offer support to their new online students. Often institutions address these projects individually rather than holistically. I want to suggest that before any institution dives into launching a new online program, it asks itself 10 simple—but not easy—questions. I call this the SOAR approach: strategic online assessment and readiness. It’s a strategic framework that allows for a holistic, comprehensive evaluation of an institution’s capabilities to offer and support online programs.

These 10 questions, each of which addresses a different facet of online programming, can guide your evaluation and will not take your committee more than a meeting to discuss.

“Does our strategic plan explicitly integrate online learning, and do we have executive-level champions?” (Vision and leadership)

This one may seem obvious, but teams often overlook it and assume it to be true. The most successful initiatives often have at least one champion at three levels: senior leaders (president, provost, dean); middle management (chair or department head); and frontline faculty. Buy-in at each level ensures support from the cabinet all the way to the water cooler conversation. Be sure that all three align on the vision.

“Who has authority to make decisions about our online programs, and are they empowered to drive change?” (Organizational structure)

Again, an obvious question, but when answered it will go a long way toward speeding up the decision-making process. Ideally, the senior-level champion will appoint one individual as the main point person. Who that is depends on your institution and organizational structure. Even if that person does not have full decision-making authority, they should be the point guard, so to speak, who keeps everything moving smoothly and on track.

“What dedicated support services do our online students receive from inquiry through graduation?” (Student experience)

The average online student is in their early 30s and most likely has significant responsibilities outside the virtual classroom. Traditional support mechanisms are typically not built to meet their needs. It may take time to build out a robust support model, but in the meantime you can dedicate someone to be their academic advisor and concierge. Students don’t have time to hunt down every phone number to every support office. Provide them with a single person who can either answer all their questions or at least point them in the right direction and follow up if necessary so they don’t waste their time.

“How do we determine which online programs to offer, and how often do we evaluate their effectiveness?” (Market position)

The question about what program to offer is a bit more complicated, but thankfully there are many services and vendors out there that can assist. I can say that taking a failing on-ground program and moving it online is not a recipe for success; it’s failing for a reason. You are better off spending your time and resources on programs that have a strong workforce demand, especially within your 50–100-mile radius. There are very few institutions that have national brands, and you shouldn’t try to compete with them. Build on your strengths in your regional workforce area.

“Do our online programs offer the flexibility today’s students need?” (Program design)

An hour of Google searching can easily help you answer this question. Research what your competitors are doing in your 100-mile radius. Do you require multiple campus visits per semester when your competitors offer 100 percent asynchronous courses? Build programs for your potential students, not current students. I understand that your faculty want “that connection” with students, but high-quality instructional designers can help mitigate this concern. With rare exceptions, the more required on-campus components there are, the more roadblocks you are creating in the minds of potential students.

“Are our transfer credit and administrative policies designed to support online student success?” (Academic policies)

Evaluating your transfer credit policies and processes is especially important at the undergraduate level where many students come with some prior college credit. In my experience, many students will not commit to enroll until they know exactly how many credits will transfer. The large online institutions have generous transfer credit policies and will assist students in obtaining their prior transcripts.

“How well do our systems talk to each other, and do they support seamless student and faculty experiences?” (Technology infrastructure)

The seamless buying experience we are accustomed to thanks to Amazon and Netflix has crept into our expectations in other areas of life. Potential students don’t want to wait days or weeks to hear from you; they want a response almost immediately. Integrated IT systems allow for automated communication from recruitment to graduation. At minimum, your website should integrate with your customer relationship management (CRM) system so that inquiring students get immediate communication upon inquiry.

“What standards guide our online course development, and how do we ensure consistency?” (Quality standards)

The relationship between faculty and the instructional designers who create online courses is critical to the success of your program. A positive relationship will help faculty understand that online course design standards and templates benefit the student, not hinder the faculty member’s academic freedom. There are several highly regarded quality frameworks out there; your institution simply needs to choose one and stick to it. High-quality course design is the foundation for a successful online program.

“How do we prepare, compensate, and support faculty for online teaching excellence?” (Faculty support)

Make no mistake: Designing a new online course is harder and will take longer than designing a traditional course. The institution should support and compensate faculty through either through release time or a course development stipend. What that looks like is different at every institution, but you need to budget for this reality. You also need to establish a course design timeline with weekly deliverables to keep everyone on track. Usually this process takes about 12 weeks per course.

“How do we measure success, and what data drives our online program decisions?” (Assessment and improvement)

You have launched your program, and students have enrolled. Now how do you assess your progress? At minimum, you should annually assess the four major components of your program: marketing, admissions, student success (advising and retention), and course quality. If each area has been set up correctly, you should be able to pull data on each major component. How effective was your marketing? What is the average cost of acquisition for each program? How did students move through your admissions funnel? Are there courses with high C, D, F, and W rates? And what do end-of-course surveys tell you about the student learning experience?

***

I hope these questions help you think about your online programs as holistic experiences rather than piecemeal, individual components, because the truth is that that’s how your students experience it. They experience it in totality, not as the responsibility of individual departments.

Please use these questions at your next leadership or departmental meeting. Investing one hour to discuss these questions will help lay the foundation for a more comprehensive and student-centered online learning experience.

I guarantee that unless you work at a large online institution, you will not have great answers for each question, and that is OK. But you have to start somewhere, build what you can, assess your progress, make improvements, and repeat. Play the long game. It’s a marathon, not a sprint. Focus on building a culture of continuous improvement, and you will start to see better student outcomes and operational efficiencies. Your students and your faculty will thank you.

This article originally appeared in Academic Leader on July 21st, 2025 - https://www.academic-leader.com/topics/curriculum-planning/ten-questions-every-academic-leader-should-ask-about-their-online-program.

In my career, I've learned that technology platforms can be replicated, course design can be copied, and marketing strategies can be shared, but the relationship ecosystem that drives sustainable success cannot be purchased or outsourced.

The Uncomfortable Reality We're Avoiding

This is a topic that no one is openly talking about, or if they do it’s at a water cooler or in private. Across higher education, there's a pervasive divide that weakens our collective ability to serve students effectively. Faculty versus "the" administration. Institutions versus vendors. Less-resourced departments versus more-resourced departments. These divisions aren't just organizational culture issues, they're relationship failures that directly impact our ability to deliver quality online education.

We've convinced ourselves that online education success is primarily about technology and pedagogy. We invest millions in Learning Management Systems, hire instructional designers, and develop sophisticated course materials. These elements matter, but they're table stakes. What separates thriving programs from struggling ones isn't the sophistication of their technology stack—it's the strength of their leadership relationship system.

The reason we don't talk about this openly is simple: it requires us to acknowledge that success depends more on our ability to connect with people than our ability to master systems. It demands vulnerability, emotional intelligence, and the uncomfortable work of building trust across organizational boundaries. It's far easier to blame external factors than to examine whether we've created an environment where people feel valued, heard, and essential to the mission. One more thing, it also requires you to look in the mirror.

Let us examine intentional relationship-building across five critical dimensions: establishing trust as your operational foundation, making every role feel mission-critical, building communication that flows in all directions, using disagreements to strengthen rather than weaken connections, and maintaining personal connection as programs scale.

The Relationship Foundation: Why Trust Accelerates Everything Else

Trust isn't just nice to have, it's the operating system that allows every other initiative to run efficiently. In online education, where faculty and staff may work remotely and students never set foot on campus, trust becomes even more critical to sustainable success.

The Speed of Trust in Online Operations

When trust exists between team members, decision-making accelerates dramatically. Instead of lengthy email chains seeking approval or consensus, trusted team members can move forward knowing their colleagues (and leaders) will support their judgment. Problems get solved through quick conversations rather than formal meetings. Implementation happens faster because people aren't second-guessing each other's motives or competence.

Building Trust Through Vulnerability

Leaders who want to build trust must model the vulnerability they expect from others. This means being transparent about challenges, uncertainties, and mistakes.

One of the simplest yet most powerful trust-building tools I've used is a four-question weekly survey sent to staff every Friday afternoon.

• Question 1 (likert scale of 1-10): “How was your week?”

• Question 2 (open ended) “What was your biggest challenge?”

• Question 3 (open ended) “What was your biggest win?”

• Question 4 (open ended) “How can we improve?”

This takes two minutes to create in Microsoft Forms and can be sent through a weekly meeting invite. The leader reviews results Monday morning, and addresses critical issues that day. This immediacy of action creates space for real conversation about actual experiences rather than assumptions about how things are going.

Leaders can also send “weekly highlight” emails to staff, sharing both wins and challenges openly. This transparency creates psychological safety—when people see that struggles are acknowledged rather than hidden, they're more likely to share their own challenges before they become crises.

The Compound Effect

Small, consistent relationship investments create exponential returns over time. The leader who walks to someone's office for a five-minute conversation instead of sending an email builds a lot more trust than one who relies solely on email or Teams messages. These moments seem insignificant individually, but they compound into the foundation that supports everything else.

When team members trust each other, they're more likely to share innovative ideas, admit when they need help, and collaborate across departmental boundaries. They're also more resilient during difficult periods because they know they're not facing challenges alone.

But trust alone isn't enough. As a leader you need to ensure every person understands exactly how their role contributes to the success of the team.

Making Every Role Feel Mission-Critical

Every person, from instructional designers to technical support staff, must understand how their specific contribution directly impacts student success and be able to articulate that in terms of winning. This isn't about inflating egos or creating false importance through unearned praise, it's about helping people see the genuine connection between their daily work and the institutional mission.

Moving Beyond Job Descriptions

Job descriptions tell people what to do, but they rarely explain why it matters. Effective leaders connect daily tasks to institutional mission and success in concrete, specific ways. Instead of saying "You are an admissions counselor," try "You're the first person who helps prospective students see themselves as part of our community." Or alternatively, you can state the obvious business case, “the more students we enroll, the more resources we have to grow and support the institution's mission.” We do not like to talk about revenue in higher education, but “no margin - no mission.”

The "Mission-Critical" Conversation

While these conversations can happen in group settings or through email, I prefer getting coffee off-site with staff members every six months. It does not need to be fancy, you can start with three questions: What's working well for you? What's not working? What do you want to accomplish in the next six months?

These conversations serve multiple purposes. They demonstrate that leadership values individual perspectives, they provide early warning about potential problems, and they create space for people to articulate their own goals and aspirations. Most importantly, they allow leaders to help staff members see how their personal goals align with institutional success.

Recognition That Resonates

Generic appreciation doesn't build the sense of being mission-critical. Effective recognition connects specific actions to specific outcomes.

Some examples include sharing year-over-year improvements in enrollment in institution-wide forums. Celebrate positive comments and results from student support services with your whole department. When a formerly resistant faculty member adopts best practices, acknowledge that transformation with your instructional design staff. Share students' personal stories of academic and personal success, connecting them to the specific staff members who contributed to those outcomes.

This type of recognition accomplishes something that generic appreciation cannot: it helps people understand the direct impact of their work on real human lives. When staff members can see how their efforts contribute to student success, they naturally become more invested in continuous improvement and innovation.

When people feel essential, they naturally want to communicate and collaborate more effectively. This creates the opportunity to build relationships that flow in every direction.

Building Relationships Up, Down, and Across

Effectively supporting online students requires communication that transcends traditional hierarchical boundaries. The siloed thinking that might work in traditional academic structures becomes a liability when trying to serve online students who expect seamless, integrated experiences.

The Three-Directional Model

Most organizations focus primarily on downward communication—leaders informing their teams about decisions and expectations. But sustainable online education success requires communication that flows upward, downward, and laterally across departmental boundaries.

Upward Relationship Building involves more than managing up—it requires becoming a trusted advisor to senior leadership. This means providing context, not just updates. Instead of reporting "Enrollment is down 15% in Program X," provide context: "Enrollment is down 15% in Program X, but we’re seeing greater traction in Program Y and have already shifted marketing dollars to build on that interest."

Effective upward relationship building also involves understanding senior leadership's broader challenges and pressures. When you can connect your online education initiatives to institutional priorities like revenue diversification, market differentiation, or student success metrics, you transform your role from service provider to strategic partner.

Downward Relationship Building becomes particularly challenging in contexts where authority is often limited and front line staff do not feel a sense of ownership. Creating psychological safety for innovation and problem-solving requires consistent demonstration that good ideas are valued regardless of their source and that failures are learning opportunities. As Zig Ziglar said, “Failure is an event, not a person.”

Regular one-on-ones become essential for developing future leaders within your team. These conversations should focus not just on current projects but on professional development, career aspirations, and leadership skill-building. When team members see that their growth matters to you personally, they invest differently in both their own development and the team's success.

Lateral Relationship Building might be the most critical and most neglected aspect of online education leadership. Breaking down silos between departments requires intentional effort to create informal communication channels and build alliances that support institutional goals rather than departmental interests. As previously mentioned, a 5-minute in-person conversation goes a lot farther than a chain of emails.

Practical Implementation

Regular cross-functional meetings should focus on relationship building as much as information sharing. Start these meetings with personal check-ins, rotate leadership responsibilities, and ensure that every participant has opportunities to contribute meaningfully to discussions.

Joint problem-solving sessions across departments create opportunities for collaborative relationship building while addressing real challenges. When departments work together to solve actual problems, they build trust and understanding that transfers to future interactions.

Using Disagreements to Strengthen Relationships

Online learning touches almost every piece of the university, conflict is inevitable. But if it is handled well, it can actually strengthen the relationship ecosystem. The key is reframing conflict from relationship damage to relationship deepening opportunity.

Climbing the Ladder of Alignment

I like to use the metaphor of a ladder when thinking about organizational alignment. Each rung represents a different level of goals, with higher rungs representing broader organizational objectives. When people disagree at lower rungs—specific tactics or implementation details—effective leaders help them climb higher to find shared purpose.

For example, faculty might resist a new technology platform (low rung), but they share the goal of student success (high rung). Instead of forcing compliance with the technology decision, effective leaders facilitate conversations about how various approaches might serve the shared goal of student success. This often leads to better implementation strategies and stronger buy-in.

The "Best Idea Wins" Culture

Creating environments where disagreement is welcomed requires consistent demonstration that the source of an idea matters less than its quality. This cultural shift doesn't happen overnight and it requires leaders to actively seek out dissenting opinions, reward people who identify problems, and visibly change course when better ideas emerge.

When junior staff members see that their insights can influence major decisions, they become more invested in institutional success. When senior leaders acknowledge when they've changed their minds based on new information, they model the intellectual humility that makes innovation possible.

Conflict Navigation Framework

Below are some key tenants to keep in mind when navigating the inevitable conflict.

Assume Positive Intent: Start every disagreement from the belief that everyone wants the institution to succeed. This assumption changes how you interpret resistance or criticism. Instead of hearing "This won't work" as obstruction, you can hear it as "I'm concerned about potential problems" and respond with curiosity rather than defensiveness.

Focus on Outcomes, Not Positions: Move conversations from "I'm right" to "What's best for students?" This shift requires discipline, especially when you feel strongly about your position. But it opens space for creative solutions that might not have been visible when everyone was defending their original ideas.

Create Learning Moments: Use disagreements to understand different perspectives rather than just to advocate for your own. Ask questions like "Help me understand your concerns" or "What would need to be true for this approach to work?" These questions demonstrate genuine interest in understanding rather than just winning.

Document and Share Resolutions: Turn conflict resolution into organizational learning by documenting how disagreements were resolved and what insights emerged. This creates institutional memory and helps future teams navigate similar challenges more effectively.

Maintaining Connection as Programs Grow

As online programs expand, the challenge isn't just operational scaling—it's relationship scaling. The informal conversations and personal connections that work well with small teams become difficult to maintain as organizations grow, yet they remain essential to sustained success.

The Intimacy Challenge

Maintaining personal connection as teams grow requires intentional system design. You can't rely on organic relationship building when teams begin to grow. Instead, you need to create structures that facilitate personal connection while accommodating larger scale.

This might mean organizing work around smaller, cross-functional teams rather than large departmental structures. It could involve creating regular rotation opportunities so people work with different colleagues over time. It definitely requires leadership attention to relationship dynamics rather than just task completion.

Systems That Support Relationships

Technology and processes should enhance rather than replace human connection. Automated systems can handle routine communications, freeing up time for meaningful conversations. Project management tools can increase transparency, reducing the need for status update meetings and creating more space for strategic discussions.

The goal is to use systems to eliminate relationship friction rather than replace relationships.

Scaling Strategies

Relationship Systems include mentorship programs that pair new hires with experienced team members, creating immediate connection points for newcomers. Cross-departmental projects should be designed to build relationships while accomplishing work goals. These relationships then serve as informal communication channels that supplement formal reporting structures.

Communication Rhythms need to scale across the organization while preserving the intimacy that makes them effective. Consistent one-on-ones might move from monthly to quarterly as teams grow, but they shouldn't disappear entirely. All-hands meetings can maintain institutional connection, but they should be supplemented with small group sessions that preserve opportunities for genuine dialogue.

Cultural Preservation becomes critical as organizations grow. This requires documenting and sharing success stories, training new leaders in relationship-building approaches, and creating traditions and rituals that reinforce connection across the organization.

Building Your Leadership Relationship System

Solid technology and pedagogy are a prerequisite, relationships are the differentiator. Everyone must feel essential to institutional success. Communication must flow in all directions, not just down hierarchical lines. Conflict, handled well, strengthens rather than weakens relationships. And relationship systems must be designed to scale with organizational growth.

These aren't just nice principles. They're requirements for sustainable online education success. When people feel valued, heard, and connected to meaningful work, they contribute differently to institutional goals. They innovate more readily, collaborate more effectively, and persist through challenges with greater resilience.

Your Next Steps

Start with a relationship audit of your online education team. Map the current connections between key players and identify gaps where stronger relationships could improve collaboration and outcomes. This isn't about organizational charts. It's about understanding where trust exists, where communication flows easily, and where friction slows down progress.

Identify one person in each direction—up, down, and across—to strengthen your connection with over the next month. This doesn't require major time investment, just intentional attention to relationship building rather than task completion.

Implement one new communication rhythm that builds rather than just informs. This might be the weekly survey mentioned earlier, monthly coffee meetings, or quarterly cross-departmental problem-solving sessions. The specific format matters less than the commitment to consistent relationship investment.

The Human Competitive Advantage

We all love the disruption and innovation buzzwords, but the most powerful competitive advantage remains fundamentally human: the ability to build and maintain relationships that enable extraordinary collective achievement. Your online education program's success depends less on your Learning Management System and more on your leadership relationship system.

The technology will continue to evolve. New platforms will emerge, existing systems will be upgraded, and entirely new approaches to online education will be developed. But the fundamental human need for connection, trust, and meaningful contribution will remain constant.

The institutions that recognize this reality and invest accordingly will build sustainable competitive advantages that can't be purchased, copied, or disrupted by technological change. They'll create environments where talented people want to work, where innovation flourishes naturally, and where student success becomes the inevitable result of aligned, committed, and connected teams.

The most critical factor in your success is hiding in plain sight, waiting for leaders brave enough to acknowledge that sustainable success has always been fundamentally human.

To provide expert insight on this crucial aspect of online education, I spoke with Nicole Poff, Founder & CEO of EDCARTA, who brings extensive experience in instructional design and quality assurance in online learning. Her practical wisdom illuminates the path forward for institutions seeking to establish effective course development practices.

Establishing Quality Standards for Online Course Development

When PHU began expanding their online offerings, they quickly recognized a common pitfall—what Poff describes as courses being "lifted and shifted," simply moved from face-to-face to online without intentional redesign for the online environment.

"Many courses are 'lifted and shifted' meaning they are moved from face-to-face to online versus intentionally designed to be an online course," notes Poff. This approach often results in disjointed learning experiences that fail to leverage the unique advantages of online education.

To avoid this trap, PHU established comprehensive quality standards based on established frameworks while adapting them to their specific institutional context. These standards addressed several key dimensions:

1. Structural alignment: Ensuring learning objectives, activities, and assessments work together cohesively

2. Engagement design: Creating meaningful interaction between students, content, instructors, and peers

3. Accessibility compliance: Meeting legal requirements and universal design principles

4. Technological consistency: Maintaining uniform navigation and tool usage across programs

Poff emphasizes that accessibility and usability must be foundational considerations. To assist, Nicole encourages the use of standardized templates and guidelines. This guided PHU's approach to standardization while still allowing for creativity within established frameworks.

Importantly, PHU's quality standards were informed by student data, as well as theoretical best practices. As Poff suggests, institutions should "lean into student data to improve discrepancies across courses within a program." This data-driven approach helped PHU identify patterns of student success and struggle across different courses, enabling targeted improvements.

To implement these standards effectively, PHU established a quality assurance team working in partnership with instructional designers. "Having a quality assurance team is important as another review to make sure things don't fall between the cracks. Ideally, you want to pair the QA person with an instructional designer," Poff advises. This collaborative approach ensured that technical standards were met while maintaining pedagogical integrity.

Creating Templates and Guidelines for Consistent Course Design

With quality standards established, PHU developed templates and guidelines to ensure consistency across their online programs. Far from limiting faculty creativity, these resources provided a supportive framework that enhanced both teaching and learning experiences.

"Providing templates and guidelines are critical. They don't limit faculty members; they're 'safeguards to the student experience,'" Poff explains. This perspective helped PHU frame templates not as restrictive elements but as tools that free faculty to focus on content expertise rather than design decisions.

The templates PHU created included consistent course navigation structures, standardized content organization, and pre-built activity frameworks that faculty could customize. These elements created a familiar environment for students across different courses, reducing cognitive load and allowing them to focus on learning rather than figuring out where to find materials.

As Poff notes, "Without a template, students can waste so much time trying to figure out the navigation from course to course. Templates are kind to students." This student-centered perspective guided PHU's approach to standardization, focusing on the end-user experience rather than administrative convenience.

Complementing these templates, PHU developed guidelines addressing content currency, assessment practices, feedback timeliness, and discussion facilitation. These guidelines established clear expectations while providing flexibility in implementation.

"Guidelines are safeguards for course development. It's something you can point to when working with a faculty member," Poff explains. "For example, some programs may have a guideline that all research or readings in the course are less than 10 years old. This ensures the course content is current and relevant."

This balance of structure and flexibility allowed PHU to maintain quality while honoring faculty expertise and teaching styles. As multiple courses were developed, these templates and guidelines evolved based on faculty feedback and student performance data, creating a continuously improving framework.

Implementing Peer Review and Quality Assurance Processes

Quality assurance in online education isn't a one-time checkpoint but an ongoing process of review and improvement. PHU implemented a comprehensive approach to quality assurance that included both instructional design review and faculty peer review.

Poff highlights that "faculty-to-faculty peer review isn't done enough. It's hard to do, especially with compensation levels for adjunct faculty." Recognizing this challenge, PHU created a structured peer review process with appropriate compensation and workload consideration.

The benefits of this approach were significant. As Poff notes, "The benefit to full-time faculty is they get to see the good ideas of their peers. It can also validate and reinforce the course design guidelines." This cross-pollination of teaching approaches strengthened the overall program quality while building a community of practice among faculty.

Importantly, PHU positioned peer review as a formative rather than summative process. "If implemented, the peer review process should not be at the end of the process; it should be included earlier," Poff advises. This timing allowed for meaningful revision before courses launched.

To ensure effective peer review, PHU developed training for faculty reviewers. "If we are going to adopt it, we need to teach faculty how to be good peer reviewers," Poff emphasizes. This training focused on constructive feedback techniques, quality standard application, and collaborative improvement approaches.

Beyond faculty peers, PHU expanded their review process to include support service areas. "There are additional support services areas which should also be consulted, like the library, career services, tutoring, the writing center, etc. We should be thinking about expanding the table because these support areas have a lot to offer our students and faculty," Poff recommends.

This inclusive approach ensured that courses not only met academic standards but also effectively integrated student support resources, creating a more holistic learning environment. Library staff reviewed research assignments, writing center representatives evaluated written instructions, and accessibility specialists verified compliance with accessibility standards.

Training Faculty in Online Pedagogy and Best Practices

The final and perhaps most critical element of PHU's course design and delivery processes was comprehensive faculty development. Even the best-designed templates and guidelines cannot compensate for instructors unfamiliar with effective online teaching practices.

"It's a vital piece and one that we skip over way too much. Sometimes we're too focused on things like policies. We should be focused in on how to provide good feedback that helps students grow," Poff emphasizes.

PHU's faculty development program addressed several key competencies:

1. Building presence: Techniques for establishing teaching, social, and cognitive presence in online environments

2. Effective feedback: Strategies for providing timely, constructive feedback that fosters improvement

3. Discussion facilitation: Methods for creating meaningful dialogue rather than formulaic forum posts

4. Assessment design: Approaches to authentic assessment that measures real-world application

5. Student engagement: Tactics for maintaining student motivation and participation

Importantly, PHU's training also included demographic insights about online learners. As Poff notes, "Faculty can also benefit from learning more about the demographics of their online students. They're much more likely to be working full-time and have additional responsibilities like a family and career."

This understanding of the online student context helped faculty design more flexible, accessible learning experiences that accommodated diverse life circumstances while maintaining academic rigor.

Training was delivered through multiple modalities, including self-paced modules, synchronous workshops, one-on-one consultations with instructional designers, and an ongoing community of practice. Faculty were incentivized to participate through stipends, recognition, and consideration in performance reviews.

The Instructional Designer-Faculty Partnership

Throughout all aspects of course design and delivery, PHU emphasized the collaborative partnership between instructional designers and faculty members. As Poff explains, "Initially, faculty may see an instructional designer as a threat, but really it's a partnership between the instructional designer and the faculty member. You need to ensure there is a good fit."

To foster this partnership, PHU carefully matched instructional designers with faculty based on teaching styles, personalities, and subject matter, creating teams that could collaborate effectively. They established clear role definitions that positioned faculty as content experts and instructional designers as online learning specialists, with overlapping responsibilities in pedagogical approaches.

Regular check-in points throughout the development process allowed for ongoing dialogue and mutual adjustment, preventing end-stage surprises or frustrations. This collaborative approach resulted in courses that combined subject matter expertise with online learning best practices—a combination neither party could achieve alone.

Conclusion: A Process-Oriented Approach to Quality

PHU's journey illustrates that effective online course design and delivery depends not just on talented individuals but on well-designed processes that ensure consistent quality. By establishing clear standards, providing supportive templates and guidelines, implementing thoughtful review processes, and investing in faculty development, institutions can create online learning experiences that rival or exceed their face-to-face counterparts.

The key insights from PHU's experience, reinforced by Nicole Poff's expertise, include:

1. Intentional design matters: Avoid simply "lifting and shifting" face-to-face courses to online formats

2. Templates support rather than restrict: Well-designed frameworks free faculty to focus on content while ensuring consistency for students

3. Review should be collaborative and formative: Include diverse perspectives early enough for meaningful revision

4. Faculty development is essential: Even experienced instructors benefit from training in online teaching approaches

5. Understanding online learners is crucial: Course design should accommodate the realities of adult learners balancing multiple responsibilities

By approaching online course development as a systematic process rather than an individual effort, institutions can scale their online offerings while maintaining quality and consistency—ultimately serving students more effectively and achieving sustainable growth.

Special thanks to Nicole Poff, Founder & CEO of EDCARTA, for sharing her expertise in online course design and quality assurance processes. Her practical insights provide valuable guidance for institutions at all stages of online program development.

In our next article, we'll explore strategies for marketing and recruiting for your online programs, including developing targeted digital marketing strategies, creating effective landing pages, and implementing lead nurturing tactics. Stay tuned for more insights on attracting the right students to your online offerings.

Small and mid-sized colleges face an impossible choice that threatens their very identity:

Option 1: Partners that promise quick results but take half your revenue while controlling critical aspects of your programs—essentially trading your institution's future for short-term growth.

Option 2: Attempt to build everything in-house with limited resources and expertise—often leading to underwhelming results, exhausted staff, and ultimately, falling further behind in the online learning race.

The consequences of this dilemma are already playing out across higher education: institutions that make the wrong choice face declining enrollments, eroding margins, losing talented faculty and staff, and in the worst cases, closure or forced mergers.

Yet in 2025, having a successful online presence isn't optional—it's essential for institutional survival and independence.

Why I'm Starting This Company

I believe small and mid-sized colleges deserve better. They deserve access to strategic online expertise that builds their internal capacity rather than creating dependencies.

After 20 years in higher education leadership, including growing online enrollments from 0 to over 1,000 students and developing innovative online programs, I've seen firsthand that it's possible for schools to transform from novices to confident, self-sufficient online operators.

That's why I'm announcing the launch of Fractional Chief Online Learning Officer (COLO), a new model for executive online leadership designed specifically for institutions that want to chart their own digital future.

What is a Fractional COLO?

A Fractional COLO brings executive-level online strategy and leadership to your institution without the full-time executive price tag. The role sits at the intersection of:

• Strategic planning

• Technology implementation

• Faculty development

• Operations design

• Revenue growth

A Fractional COLO works within your institution as a guide while you build internal capabilities, knowledge, and systems.

The goal? After our engagement, your institution doesn't just survive online—it thrives independently with newfound capabilities that become part of your institutional DNA.

The Transformation Journey

Institutions that work with a Fractional COLO undergo a profound transformation:

FROM struggling with technology decisions, inconsistent online courses, and disappointing enrollment…

TO confidently deploying the right technologies, offering consistently excellent online experiences, and strategically growing enrollment.

FROM feeling pressured to outsource core functions to vendors who don't understand your mission…

TO developing in-house expertise that maintains your institutional values while expanding your reach.

FROM watching revenue disappear into vendor partnerships…

TO retaining the full value of the programs you've created.

How It Works

The engagement follows a clear path:

1. Assessment: We start with a comprehensive evaluation of your current online capabilities across 10 critical factors.

2. Strategic Planning: Based on the assessment, we develop a roadmap aligned with your institution's unique mission and resources.

3. Implementation Support: I work alongside your team to implement the roadmap, transferring knowledge and building internal capacity every step of the way.

4. Operational Development: We create standard operating procedures, workflows, and systems that will continue working long after our engagement.

The entire model is designed with one purpose: ensuring your institution can thrive online without creating permanent dependencies on external partners.

The Stakes Have Never Been Higher

The harsh reality is that many small and mid-sized colleges won't survive the next decade without a successful digital transformation strategy.

Those that continue outsourcing core operations face:

• Diminishing financial returns as vendors absorb the majority of revenue

• Loss of control over student experience and institutional reputation

• Difficulty extricating themselves from complex contracts

• Stunted internal growth as expertise develops externally

Meanwhile, institutions attempting DIY approaches without proper guidance often experience:

• Failed program launches after significant investment

• Faculty resistance due to poor implementation

• Technological choices that quickly become obsolete

• Inability to compete with better-resourced competitors

Either path leads to the same destination: institutional vulnerability in an increasingly competitive landscape.

Real Results: The Transformation is Possible

Over the last 20-years, I helped schools transform from complete online novices to digital innovators by:

• Building internal expertise instead of vendor dependency

• Creating standardized development and support processes

• Implementing strategic marketing and enrollment systems

• Establishing clear quality standards

The results weren't just impressive—they were transformative:

• Online enrollment grew 6x after insourcing operations

• We launched over 20 successful online programs

• Year-over-year revenue increased

• Faculty became champions of high-quality online education

• The institutions gained confidence and independence in online operations

Most importantly, these weren't temporary gains dependent on ongoing vendor relationships—they became woven into the institutional fabric, creating sustainable capabilities that continue driving success years later.

Who This Is For

Fractional COLO is designed specifically for institutions ready to transform:

• Small to mid-sized private colleges and universities

• Institutions looking to launch or grow online programs

• Schools seeking to reduce dependency on outside vendors

• Institutions wanting executive online leadership without a full-time C-suite addition

If your institution is determined to control its own digital destiny while maintaining its unique identity and mission, this model was created with you in mind.

What's Next

I'll be sharing more insights in the coming weeks about specific aspects of successful online operations, including:

• How to evaluate your institution's online readiness

• Setting realistic goals and timelines for online growth

• Building sustainable financial models for online programs

• Developing your core online education team

In the meantime, if you'd like to learn more about how a Fractional COLO could support your institution's transformation, visit www.fractionalcolo.com or reach out directly at jeremiah@fractionalcolo.com.

Your institution deserves to write its own digital future. I'm committed to helping make that possible.

If you find value in these insights, please consider sharing this newsletter with colleagues in higher education who might benefit. And if you're not already subscribed, join us for weekly guidance on navigating the complex world of online higher education.

To provide expert insight on implementing essential technologies for online education, I spoke with Robert Ubell, Vice Dean Emeritus of Online Learning at NYU's Tandon School of Engineering and a leading authority in the field. With programs under his leadership ranked #2 nationally by US News & World Report and having enrolled more than 30,000 students, Bob brings a wealth of practical wisdom to this complex topic.

Your Technology Foundation: Selecting and Integrating an LMS

When approaching LMS selection, Ubell emphasizes a fundamental principle: "The technology doesn't matter. It's the pedagogy that matters. If you spend too much time with faculty over the technologies, you may increase their anxiety."

This philosophy guided PHU's approach to selecting their learning management system. Rather than focusing solely on features, they began by identifying their pedagogical needs and student experience goals.

PHU's LMS Selection Process

PHU started with their existing LMS, following Ubell's advice that "small institutions should start with their existing elements." As he notes, "It may have all the full bells and whistles that they need long term, it may not. But you already have a staff that takes care of it. You already have a relationship with the LMS provider."

While evaluating whether to keep their current system or transition to a new one, PHU considered several critical factors:

1. Integration capabilities with existing systems (SIS, CRM, authentication)

2. Faculty familiarity and required training investment

3. Student experience and interface design

4. Support availability and technical resources needed

5. Scalability to accommodate future growth

Through this process, PHU determined that their current LMS could serve as a foundation while they invested in strategic integrations and add-ons to enhance functionality.

Lessons from the Field

Ubell cautions that the differences between LMS platforms are often marginal: "The differences between one LMS and the other...are marginal. There may be things that are on a grand scale, one LMS has a better relationship to online learning than the others. But I don't think they're critical."

He compares LMS selection to choosing between major soft drink brands: "It's in my view, it's Coke and Pepsi. Some people like the taste of one and the other people like the taste of the other. But in the long run, in the blind test, you probably don't know the difference."

This perspective helped PHU avoid analysis paralysis and focus on implementation rather than endless feature comparisons.

Beyond the LMS: Tools for Content Creation and Delivery

PHU recognized that while the LMS provides the foundation, additional tools are needed for engaging content creation and delivery. Following Ubell's philosophy that "it's the pedagogy that matters," they prioritized tools that supported effective teaching and learning rather than simply chasing the latest technology.

PHU's Content Creation and Delivery Strategy

In addition to their LMS, PHU recognized the need for centralized content creation and delivery. They evaluated the following platforms which could be integrated into their existing LMS system.

1. Video platform selection: A system for recording, hosting, and streaming lecture content with robust analytics

2. Interactive content tools: Solutions for creating engaging assessments, simulations, and collaborative activities

3. Content authoring tools: Platforms that enable faculty to develop accessible, interactive course materials

4. Virtual lab environments: For programs requiring hands-on technical experience

Importantly, PHU created a sustainable support model for each tool, including faculty training, technical documentation, and ongoing assistance.

Ubell's Perspective on Content Tools

Ubell warns against overwhelming faculty with too many technologies at once. He recommends starting with pedagogy and addressing technology later: "I would suggest you start with pedagogy and worry about technology later. And since the technologies are much more easily adapted even to novice faculty... even the most anxious faculty member has overcome their technology."

This advice led PHU to implement a phased approach to introducing new tools, starting with essential functions and gradually expanding as faculty comfort increased.

Supporting Students: Engagement and Support Technologies

For online students who never set foot on campus, robust support systems are essential. As Ubell points out, "Your online students have to feel as close to what's happening on campus, as any student who's walking on their quad."

PHU's Student Support Technology Ecosystem

PHU is working to develop a comprehensive technology ecosystem to support online students throughout their journey. As they prioritize student success, they are implementing the following systems:

1. Virtual advising platform: For scheduling appointments, conducting video sessions, and tracking student progress

2. 24/7 technical support system: Including chatbots for immediate assistance and live help for complex issues

3. Online tutoring solutions: Providing synchronous and asynchronous academic support

4. Community and engagement tools: Creating opportunities for peer connection and extracurricular participation

5. Mental health and wellness resources: Ensuring holistic student wellbeing

The Imperative of Equal Access

Ubell emphasizes the importance of providing online students with access to everything available to on-campus students: "Everything that's available to your on-campus student must be—not only should be, must be—available to the online students as well, otherwise the online student feels alienated and doesn't feel part of your institution, but a second rank."

This philosophy is guiding PHU's approach to evaluating and implementing every student-facing technology, ensuring that online learners had equivalent or better experiences compared to their on-campus peers.

Ensuring Accessibility and User-Friendliness

Accessibility isn't just a legal requirement—it's a core principle of effective online education. PHU recognized that accessible design benefits all students, not just those with documented disabilities.

PHU's Accessibility Framework

Their approach was multi-faceted and thorough. Universal design principles guided their technology selection from the start. They implemented comprehensive testing that combined automated tools with human evaluation. To maintain standards, they scheduled regular audits for compliance checks. Faculty received training to create accessible materials with appropriate tools and knowledge. Finally, they established feedback mechanisms that encouraged students to share their experiences with the system's usability and accessibility.

Ubell's Insight on Technology Implementation

Ubell notes that technology implementation should be approached with patience and faculty support: "Faculty members without the comfort in technology, my recommendation to the leadership is to postpone technology questions till the end. Once they're comfortable teaching just generally in an online experience."

This advice helped PHU develop a phased implementation approach that prioritized faculty confidence and student experience over rapid deployment of new technologies.

Integration and System Harmony

Perhaps the most critical aspect of PHU's technology implementation was ensuring all systems worked together seamlessly. Isolated tools create friction points that frustrate users and undermine learning.

PHU's Integration Strategy

PHU developed a comprehensive integration strategy with several interconnected components.

At its foundation was a single sign-on implementation that allowed users to access the entire suite of tools with just one set of credentials, eliminating frustrating login barriers. The team also leveraged application programming interfaces (APIs) to build custom integrations where standard connections weren't sufficient.

Throughout the process, they conducted user experience testing to verify that transitions between different systems felt intuitive and natural. This thoughtful approach created what students and faculty experienced as a single, cohesive ecosystem, despite the reality that it comprised multiple technologies working together behind the scenes.

Conclusion and Key Takeaways

As PHU's journey demonstrates, implementing essential technologies for online education requires balancing innovation with practicality, features with usability, and ambition with sustainability. Their experience, guided by insights from experts like Bob Ubell, offers several valuable lessons:

1. Start with pedagogy, not features: Let teaching and learning needs drive technology decisions

2. Begin with what you have: Leverage existing systems when possible before making major investments

3. Focus on the student experience: Ensure online learners have equivalent or better access than on-campus students

4. Prioritize integration: Create a seamless ecosystem rather than isolated tools

5. Build faculty confidence gradually: Introduce technologies at a pace that allows for comfort and mastery

As Ubell reminds us, "In the long run, in the blind test, you probably don't know the difference" between various technologies. What matters is how well they support your institution's educational mission and the success of your students.

In our next article, we'll explore strategies for developing online courses and diving in how an institution can create standardized processes to ensure quality course design and delivery. Stay tuned for more insights on navigating the complex landscape of online higher education.

Special thanks to Bob Ubell for sharing his expertise in implementing technologies for online education. His decades of experience and pragmatic approach provide valuable guidance for institutions at all stages of online program development.

To provide expert insight on building effective online education teams, I spoke with Sasha Thackaberry-Voinovich Ph.D., President of SkillsWave, a full-solution platform for organizational upskilling. Dr. Thackaberry-Voinovich brings extensive leadership experience from multiple senior-level positions in higher education, including Vice President of Online and Continuing Education at Louisiana State University, Associate Vice President at Southern New Hampshire University, and Associate Vice Chancellor at National University. Her recently published book, "How to Grow Enrollments in Online Higher Ed: Marketing and Recruitment," offers practical guidance on effectively attracting and recruiting students to online college and university programs.

We are going to continue to follow our fictional university, Pinecrest Harbor University as they seek to build out their online education team.

After completing their readiness assessment, setting realistic goals, and developing a sustainable financial model, Pinecrest Harbor University faced their next critical challenge: building a core team to manage their expanding online education initiatives. With the decision to bring most services in-house, assembling the right team became paramount to their success.

Identifying Essential Roles for Managing Online Programs

"The first piece is to diagnose the organizational structure," advises Dr. Thackaberry-Voinovich. "You should have a role similar to a chief online learning officer (COLO). The COLO needs to report to the provost or president and be part of the senior leadership team."

Following this guidance, Pinecrest Harbor created a leadership position with direct access to senior administration, ensuring online learning had a voice in institutional strategy and resource allocation decisions.

Beyond leadership, Pinecrest Harbor identified several functional areas requiring specialized roles. Their program development team included instructional designers to develop courses, educational technologists to support learning tools, and faculty development specialists to prepare instructors. For student recruitment and support, they recognized the need for online admissions counselors, student success coaches, and academic advisors for ongoing support. Administrative support was equally important, with dedicated registrar staff, financial aid specialists for online learners, and a compliance coordinator to manage regulatory requirements.

As Dr. Thackaberry-Voinovich notes, "One person should be responsible for the student experience. Your IT systems need to talk to one another and be integrated." Pinecrest Harbor took this advice to heart, creating a seamless experience for online students by ensuring system integration and clear responsibility for the student journey.

Recognizing that they couldn't immediately fill all positions, Pinecrest Harbor adopted a phased approach. Dr. Thackaberry-Voinovich recommends, "When planning, think in terms of 3-month, 6-month, and 12-month" timelines. This advice helped Pinecrest Harbor prioritize immediate hiring needs while developing a longer-term staffing strategy.

For their initial team, they focused on what Dr. Thackaberry-Voinovich calls "leader-doers" – people who could both direct operations and handle hands-on work. This approach allowed them to build capacity efficiently with limited resources.

Strategies for Recruiting or Retraining Existing Staff

Pinecrest Harbor pursued a dual strategy of both internal development and external recruitment to build their team. This approach allowed them to leverage institutional knowledge while bringing in fresh perspectives and specialized expertise.

For external hiring, Pinecrest Harbor followed Dr. Thackaberry-Voinovich's unexpected but insightful recommendation: "If you are looking to hire new staff, I've had great success with K-12 teachers. They are great generalists and are used to being resourceful and being efficient with limited resources."

This advice led Pinecrest Harbor to recruit several former K-12 educators who brought valuable skills in adaptability, organization, and student-centered thinking to their online learning team. Their experience in managing multiple priorities with limited resources proved invaluable in the startup phase of online operations.

For existing staff transitioning to online roles, Pinecrest Harbor implemented Dr. Thackaberry-Voinovich's professional development recommendation: "I would recommend that staff spend 5-hours a week in professional development. If this can be done in groups, you can build in accountability and create programs that are more structured."

This structured approach to upskilling created a community of practice where team members could share challenges and solutions while developing new skills. Pinecrest Harbor organized these sessions around key online learning competencies including digital pedagogy and learning design, student support in virtual environments, educational technology and tools, data analysis and decision making, and regulatory compliance in online education. This collaborative learning model helped break down silos between departments and foster a shared understanding of online education principles.

Developing a Collaborative, Cross-Functional Team Structure

Understanding that online education success requires seamless coordination across multiple areas, Pinecrest Harbor implemented a cross-functional team structure designed to foster collaboration.

Dr. Thackaberry-Voinovich emphasizes, "Your teams need to be in constant communication with one another, the advisors are talking to the instructional designers, the instructional designers talking to admissions, etc."

To facilitate this communication, Pinecrest Harbor established weekly cross-functional meetings that included updates from each functional area, discussion of student journey touchpoints, and collaborative problem-solving. They created shared digital workspaces with transparent project management tools, real-time collaboration platforms, and accessible knowledge repositories. Regular process mapping sessions helped in identifying handoff points between teams, clarifying roles and responsibilities, and streamlining the student experience.

The importance of seamless handoffs between departments was a key insight from Dr. Thackaberry-Voinovich, who notes that "a key point is the handoff between the admissions department and your academic advisors. This will help with retention."

Pinecrest Harbor paid particular attention to these transition points, creating detailed protocols for transferring student information and responsibility from marketing to admissions to academic advising. This ensured that students experienced a cohesive journey rather than disconnected interactions with different university departments.

In the area of course development, Pinecrest Harbor adopted Dr. Thackaberry-Voinovich's iterative approach: "I don't consider a course finished until it has run once, and we incorporate the initial feedback into the course design. Courses can be thought of as being in a 'continual beta' state, meaning there is always room to improve."

This philosophy transformed their course development process from a one-time handoff to an ongoing collaboration between instructional designers, faculty, and student support teams. After each course run, they gathered feedback from all stakeholders to refine the learning experience.

Fostering a Culture of Innovation and Continuous Improvement

Perhaps most importantly, Pinecrest Harbor focused on building a team culture that embraced innovation and continuous improvement. They drew inspiration from Dr. Thackaberry-Voinovich's perspective: "I mentioned course design as in a continual beta state, the same goes for your entire organization. Your staff needs to poke holes in your processes and identify areas for improvement."

This "continual beta" mindset permeated Pinecrest Harbor's approach to online education, with team members encouraged to question existing practices and suggest improvements. Dr. Thackaberry-Voinovich's recommendation for a "'best idea wins' mentality" became a guiding principle for the team. "It doesn't matter where it comes from, or who says it, the best idea wins."

To operationalize this culture, Pinecrest Harbor implemented several key initiatives. They established a regular process evaluation system with quarterly reviews of all operational processes, data-driven assessment of effectiveness, and structured improvement planning. Their innovation incubator provided dedicated time for exploring new approaches, small-scale pilots of promising ideas, and recognition for innovative solutions. Professional learning communities enabled cross-functional exploration of emerging trends, sharing of industry best practices, and collaborative problem-solving.

Dr. Thackaberry-Voinovich's emphasis on data collection as "key to course version control" extended beyond courses to all aspects of Pinecrest Harbor's online operations. They implemented robust data collection and analysis processes to identify improvement opportunities across the student journey.

The team adopted what Dr. Thackaberry-Voinovich describes as a "perpetually suspicious" approach to their own processes, constantly evaluating and seeking improvements rather than becoming complacent with initial success.

Conclusion

Building a successful online education team requires careful planning, strategic recruitment, and intentional culture development. Pinecrest Harbor's experience demonstrates that while the process takes time and resources, the investment in building a strong, collaborative team pays dividends in program quality and student success.

Their approach – combining strategic hiring, professional development, cross-functional collaboration, and cultural transformation – provides a valuable model for other institutions embarking on similar journeys. The key lies not just in filling positions, but in creating an environment where innovation thrives and team members are empowered to contribute to the institution's online learning mission.

Special thanks to Dr. Sasha Thackaberry-Voinovich for sharing her expertise in building and leading effective online education teams. Her book, "How to Grow Enrollments in Online Higher Ed: Marketing and Recruitment," offers additional valuable insights for institutions seeking to expand their online presence and effectively serve online learners.

In our next article, we'll explore strategies for engaging faculty in online education and building effective faculty development programs. Stay tuned for more insights on navigating the complex landscape of online higher education.

Let's continue following Pinecrest Harbor University's journey as they develop their financial model for online program expansion.

Understanding the Components of Financial Modeling

After completing their readiness assessment and setting strategic goals, Pinecrest Harbor University begins the crucial process of financial modeling. Their first step is understanding the various components that need to be considered in their financial projections.

Program-Level Analysis

Following Andrich's guidance, PHU's financial team begins by analyzing each proposed online program individually. They examine:

1. Market Demand and Competition

   • Expected enrollment numbers based on market research

   • Competitive pricing analysis

   • Program-specific marketing costs

2. Resource Requirements

   • Faculty compensation and course development costs

   • Program-specific technology needs

   • Support staff requirements

   • Marketing and recruitment expenses

3. Revenue Projections

   • Tuition revenue based on different enrollment scenarios

   • Additional fees and revenue sources

   • Potential partnership revenue sharing

Below is a simplified program-level analysis:

Portfolio-Level Considerations

When examining portfolio-wide factors, Pinecrest Harbor University recognizes that certain infrastructure and operational costs can be distributed across multiple programs to achieve economies of scale. "One of the most crucial aspects of financial modeling is understanding how to spread infrastructure costs across your program portfolio," notes Melanie Andrich. "This not only helps justify major technology investments but also creates operational efficiencies that benefit all programs."

The university first examines shared infrastructure costs, which include their Learning Management System (LMS), Student Information System (SIS), marketing automation platforms, and 24/7 technical support services. These foundational technologies represent significant investments that can be leveraged across all online programs, making them more cost-effective as the portfolio grows.

Staffing requirements represent another critical portfolio-wide consideration. PHU determines they need a core team of instructional designers to maintain consistent quality across all online courses, student success coaches to support learners throughout their academic journey, online program administrators to oversee operations, and technical support staff to ensure smooth program delivery. These positions are structured to support multiple programs, allowing for efficient resource utilization while maintaining high-quality service delivery.

Marketing and recruitment efforts also benefit from a portfolio approach. PHU develops comprehensive brand awareness campaigns that promote their entire suite of online programs, builds a robust digital marketing infrastructure that can support multiple program launches, and establishes a recruitment team capable of representing all online offerings. This integrated approach to marketing and recruitment allows for more efficient resource allocation and creates synergies across the program portfolio.

Identifying Funding Sources and Cost-Saving Measures

Funding Sources and Amounts for Online Initiative

In examining funding options for their online initiatives, Pinecrest Harbor University identifies three key categories of potential funding sources. Internal funding leverages existing institutional resources, including budget reallocations, strategic initiative funds, and revenue from current online programs. Together, these internal sources could provide about $360,000 in initial funding.

External funding opportunities present another avenue for resource generation. Through a combination of state grants, industry partnerships, and alumni donations PHU identifies potential funding of approximately $225,000.

Creative funding solutions help bridge remaining gaps. PHU adopts a phased investment approach using revenue from early programs and develops strategic partnerships. These solutions generated additional value of about $140,000. These creative solutions allow PHU to spread costs over time while building sustainable revenue streams.

The table below provides a detailed breakdown of these funding sources and their projected amounts, totaling $725,000 in available funding.

Cost-Saving Measures

PHU implements a comprehensive cost-saving strategy focusing on three key areas. For resource optimization, they adopt a shared services model across programs, where support staff are cross-trained to handle multiple roles and routine tasks are automated. The university strategically employs part-time and adjunct faculty while negotiating bulk licensing agreements for software to reduce overall costs.

Development efficiencies are achieved through a standardized approach to course creation. PHU implements template-based course development and creates a library of reusable learning objects that can be shared across related programs. This standardized framework, combined with batch processing of course development, significantly reduces the time and resources needed to launch new programs.

Operational efficiencies are realized through strategic automation and centralization. The university implements automated student support systems and centralizes both marketing resources and faculty development initiatives. By integrating technology systems and streamlining administrative processes, PHU reduces redundancies and improves service delivery while maintaining cost control. These combined efficiency measures enable the university to scale its online programs sustainably while maintaining quality.

Developing the Financial Model

Following Andrich's recommendation for financial modeling, PHU develops detailed revenue projections and cost structures to guide their online program expansion.

"When developing enrollment scenarios," Andrich explains, "it's crucial to plan for multiple outcomes. A conservative estimate helps ensure sustainability, while optimistic targets help you plan for scalability."

With this structure in place, PHU can effectively plan for both immediate needs and long-term scalability. The variable cost per student typically decreases as enrollment grows, while fixed costs can be amortized across a larger student base, improving overall program economics.

Creating Flexible, Scalable Budgets

To ensure financial sustainability and scalability, PHU develops a comprehensive adaptable growth model for their online programs. At its foundation are modular budget components that include core operational costs, per-program incremental expenses, and scalable support services. The university implements variable marketing spend and flexible staffing models that can expand or contract based on program needs.

PHU establishes clear scaling triggers to guide resource allocation decisions. These include specific enrollment thresholds that signal when to expand staff, upgrade technology, or enhance support services. The university sets precise markers for adjusting marketing budgets and initiating faculty hiring, ensuring resources align with growth. For example, they plan to add an additional student success coach for every 200 new students and increase marketing spend by 20% when enrollment reaches 75% of target.

The resource allocation framework provides structure to this growth model. It starts with base operational funding for essential services, supplemented by growth-based funding that increases proportionally with enrollment. PHU implements performance-based allocations tied to specific metrics like retention rates and student satisfaction. They also maintain both emergency reserves (15% of operating budget) and an innovation fund (5% of net revenue) to support continuous improvement and manage unexpected challenges.

Investment Timeline

The financial model includes a detailed investment timeline:

Scenario Planning

As Andrich suggests, PHU develops multiple scenarios to understand potential outcomes:

Conservative Scenario (25% of enrollment targets)

• Slower program rollout

• Reduced marketing spend

• Delayed hiring

• Extended timeline for technology investments

Moderate Scenario (50% of enrollment targets)

• Steady program rollout

• Moderate marketing investment

• Gradual staff expansion

• Phased technology implementation

Optimistic Scenario (100% of enrollment targets)

• Accelerated program rollout

• Aggressive marketing strategy

• Rapid staff expansion

• Complete technology implementation

Key Financial Metrics

PHU identifies several key metrics to track using established industry benchmarks. Actual performance will be analyzed every 6-months to monitor progress and adjust as needed.

Conclusion

As Pinecrest Harbor University finalizes its financial model, several key lessons emerge that are valuable for any institution embarking on online program development:

1. Take a program-by-program approach to financial modeling, as Melanie Andrich recommends, while considering portfolio-wide efficiencies.

2. Develop multiple enrollment scenarios (25%, 50%, 75%, 100% of targets) to prepare for various outcomes and inform resource allocation decisions.

3. Use the financial model not just as a projection tool, but as Andrich suggests, as a way to examine operations and scaling requirements.

4. Consider technology investments across the entire program portfolio to justify costs and maximize efficiency.

5. Build in flexibility to adjust to market changes and enrollment variations.

The financial model becomes not just a budget document, but a strategic tool that guides decision-making and resource allocation throughout the online program development process.

Special thanks to Melanie Andrich for sharing her expertise in financial modeling and strategic planning for online programs. Her insights about program-level analysis, scenario planning, and technology cost allocation provide valuable guidance for institutions developing their online education financial models.

In our next article, we'll explore strategies for building and supporting faculty engagement in online education, another crucial element in developing successful online programs. Stay tuned for more insights on navigating the complex landscape of online higher education.

If you're curious about what it takes to break free from an OPM partnership, grow enrollment, and take control of your online programs, read my full story here:

https://voltedu.com/insights/we-broke-up-with-our-opm-your-institution-can-too/

If you're considering a similar move or just want to learn more about our experience, I'm happy to hop on a Zoom call to share insights and answer any questions - you can reach me on LinkedIn or via email (diyonlineoperations@gmail.com).