Covid-19 has driven education to digital transformation in the form of various edtech businesses, especially e-learning. It has a rapidly growing market. The global revenue based on Digital Journal, the e-learning market in Singapore for 2019 was valued at US$ 792.97 million and it is projected to reach US$ 2,228.74 million by 2027. The worldwide market size shows a similar result and growth as well. Related to this profitable chance, HolonIQ, an investment intelligence firm, reported that investment in the edtech business increased three times greater than in the prior decade at $4,5 billion.

The findings above show a tantalizing opportunity for the edtech companies including e-learning providers. They should vie to give appeal to online learning offering to get as many registrants for earning higher revenue. A large number of e-learning enthusiasts is not a myth. Based on McKinsey, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC), the web-based online courses designed for a large number of users, reached 300.000 learners in 2012 and increased to 220 million in 2019. During the Covid-19 pandemic, it increased up to 92% in 2020.

For further example, let’s discuss two MOOCs leading platforms, Coursera and edX. According to We Forum, Coursera received 21 million students in 2016. It increased to 71 million in 2020 and 92 million in 2021. Besides, edX reached 81 million students in 2019 and over 110 million in 2020. The number remains grown over the years.

Coursera and edX offer degree and non-degree programs which can attract more learners effectively. Non-degree courses are given free and vice versa. They cooperate with several universities so the learners’ credit can be transferred to the university level. Learners from all around the world can experience studying at prestigious universities they want such as Yale, Michigan, Stanford, etc. easily without attending the campus because the courses are conducted fully online. The program orientation is more than only learning but also workforce life. Online degrees are valid and have been recognized as well.

It is reasonable if online courses with certified degrees get high demand due to the flexibility of time, place, and tuition. Those who have a certain skill with no four-year degree will be able to enroll themselves and get a better profession. Those who want to experience post-secondary education but they have limited funds to register on an offline campus will get its solution. Employees with their hustle but want to acquire more or other skills will be facilitated. 

In Singapore, more than 40 institutions are offering online courses with certified degrees. As it offers a lot of benefits, Human Resource Online reported the findings that 73.4% of online learners in Singapore want e-learning as a permanent option. Hence, online courses with certified online degrees are extremely sellable. It is prospective to grow more credentials in online courses.

Considering the condition above, online degrees can be achieved easily through MOOC-based courses. Besides, the e-learning market size is on the rise since edtech companies and start-ups keep supporting the digital transformation of education. Then, we can find that post-secondary education providers are challenged. So, how can they take the challenges to be precious opportunities?

Post-secondary education providers like universities should upgrade and add their courses option with blended learning and fully online learning programs. The training organization can do the same thing to facilitate those who include long-life learners. Anyway, here are several points to adapt in taking the challenges into opportunity related to the rise of an online degree.

Tuition Discount

Online learning programs need lower costs because they can decrease faculty expenditure. Therefore, the university can offer a tuition discount for the learners. It will be an appealing offer. Forward-thinking institutions have done it. For instance, the University of Illinois gives a tuition discount of $22.000 for an entire M.B.A. By leveraging more than 50 MOOC-based degrees worldwide with various prices and discounts, Georgia Tech exceeds 10, 000 enrollments for this fall. Georgia Tech is a pioneer of online master’s in computer science which costs only $7,000.

Based on Harvard Business Review, “The aggregation of multiple universities and their courses and programs into single distributed platforms is also opening up new business-to-business (B2B) channels through direct partnerships with employers.” It means that e-learning provider owners or training organizations can take this precious chance. They may offer transferable college credit and other credentials. It has been done by Udemy by wrapping that program in a Netflix-like option for a monthly subscription.

Artificial Intelligence (AI) Support

The pandemic of Covid-19 forced institutions to conduct e-learning in a rush. Many of them just accomplished it as simple as opening a conference via Zoom. However, technology to support e-learning is always developed. For example, AI can give learners more customer-centric service. Georgia Tech is a pioneer in using AI-based teaching assistants for its online degree program. Many universities are now deploying blended and fully AI-based chatbots. It is integrated with LMS that functions to empower students’ service with personnel with data, enrollment, and courses deadline. 

Prioritize Digital Strategy

The development of technology forces college leaders and policymakers to do digital transformation as it is needed for their business core which focuses on learning and credentialing. Many top universities decided to leap forward by having a partnership with online program managers (OPMs) in a model of joint ventures and a decade-long contract valued at a multi-million dollar for core critical academic areas.

Finally, we can conclude that in facing the rise of online degrees, post-secondary education providers including universities, training organizations, and other e-learning providers need to take a part in digital transformation for education. It functions to keep the institution updated and interesting for today’s generation of learners with various backgrounds. Otherwise, they will be left behind.

The most important thing to do in conducting an online learning course is to provide a proven LMS for the learners. It is urgent to give them a good experience in learning. Besides, as one of the goals in conducting online courses is to reach more enrollments to facilitate more learners, choose only an LMS that can accommodate a large number of users at a time. Otherwise, the learners will be disturbed by the problem of site down or technical glitches. It happened to Singapore MOE Home-Based Learning on the first day of learning at home due to Covid-19. Related to this, we recommend Katalis.App, an LMS provider that works under Open edX, a leading learning solution catering to higher education, enterprise, and government organization that has been used by more than 55 million learners.