Obama Working on Free Online Education?

President Obama is planning on spending over $12 billion on America’s community colleges. This money is intended to be spent on grants, new programs, infrastructure and online education.

The administration hopes various federal agencies will collaborate to create new online courses, which will be "freely available through one or more community colleges and the Defense Department's distributed-learning network." However, it's unclear how students would gain access to the courses, how they would earn credit for completing a course, and whether the free courses would be competitive alternatives to the many online community college courses already offered.

Certainly all online education isn’t going to be free in the future but this does give for-profit online colleges the continued incentive to continue to build their brand recognition. After all, people will pay more for a degree from an established university with a respected name.

Online High Schools Increase Acceptance of Online Education

The Atlanta-Journal Constitution has a great article about local teens using online education to take summer classes; allowing them the opportunity to earn credits but still enjoy their summer.

The subject of the article is 13-year-old Quinn Pratt and to earn his algebra credits his parents enrolled him in Kaplan High School (formerly Miami Online High School).

More and more of the larger online schools are starting online high schools targeted to young students. It’s a smart way to increase the acceptance of an online education from students and potential employers.

It also helps develop the notion that an online education is legitimate and can generate an educated student that can take what they’ve learned to the next level.

NAU Sues NAU

Confused? That's the point of the court case:

National American University, which has campuses in Minnesota and several other states, is suing a pornography site, claiming trademark violations and cyber piracy for its use of Naughty American University and the acronym NAU...

The lawsuit seeks to prevent the use of the school's trademark and also asks a jury to award financial damages.

For what it's worth I think a little research will show they offer very different types of programs. Very different.

Apollo, University of Phoenix Aim to Expand Internationally

Apollo Global, part of Apollo Group; the parent company to University of Phoenix, has made a bid to purchase a majority of BPP Holdings, a British Education and training company on Tuesday.

The international markets represent huge potential to for-profit education companies. But they will have to make a choice: organically expand internationally or buy their way in.

This, combined with the news yesterday that Apollo’s new co-CEO Gregory Cappelli will oversee Apollo Global, shows that they are taking the international markets seriously.

Report: Peking University to IPO on Nasdaq

Take this for what it is worth but Hong Kong's South China Morning Post is reporting China's Beijing Beida Jade Bird Education is planning an IPO in Q3 2009:

An unnamed insider said Beijing Beida Jade Bird Education, an online education company partly owned by Peking University,
plans to raise $150 million through a Nasdaq listing in the third
quarter, reports Hong Kong's South China Morning Post. Beida Jade Bird
Group Brand Director Wu Zhen said that he was unaware of the news...

Granted "unnamed insiders" are hardly reliable but this could be a positive sign for other online education companies interested in going public.

New Kindle DX Aimed at Textbook Market

Amazon released the new larger Kindle DX today and it will have broad implications for the textbook industry and, subsequently, online education and their students.

The new Kindle DX is 7.2” wide and 10.4” tall which provides more space for text, images and notes in the margins.

Frankly, as I’ve mentioned before, Amazon’s presence in the textbook industry is a win for everyone. Students will be able to save significant money on books for their education. Online schools can rent the Kindles to students and provide the online marketplace (in cooperation with Amazon) to sell the textbooks for a cut of the price. Plus, textbook companies will save on printing costs and everyone will save money on not having to ship heavy textbooks.

There’s serious money to be made here by everyone. It will be interesting to see which online schools will move first and how quickly the textbook industry will catch on.

DeVry Launches First Online Career Fair

DeVry University’s career services department hosted their first “virtual” career fair for its students and alumni today. The fair featured over 30 companies including State Farm, GE Healthcare, IBM and more.

It’s a great way to increase their student's visibility in a tough job market and add value to DeVry's degree offerings.