Distance Education - Major Benefits of Use: An Institutional Perspective

Major Benefits of Use: An Institutional Perspective

Diana G. Oblinger, writing specifically of the US context, has identified four broad reasons why educational institutions might embrace distance learning:

• Expanding access: distance education can assist in meeting the demand for education and training demand from the general populace and businesses, especially because it offers the possibility of a flexibility to accommodate the many time-constraints imposed by personal responsibilities and commitments.
• Alleviate capacity constraints: being mostly or entirely conducted off-site, the system reduces the demand on institutional infrastructure such as buildings.
• Making money from emerging markets: she claims an increasing acceptance from the population of the value of lifelong learning, beyond the normal schooling age, and that institutions can benefit financially from this by adopting distance education. She sees sectors of education such as courses for business executives as being "more lucrative than traditional markets".
• Catalyst for institutional transformation: the competitive modern marketplace demands rapid change and innovation, for which she believes distance education programs can act as a catalyst.

In addition, other benefits include:

• Disabilities, Handicaps, or sicknesses: There are many students that are unable to go to a traditional school setting because they cannot get around easily or a low immune system and get sick from other students. Distance education can help in these cases because the students will not have to leave their home or be around other people. It makes it possible for these students to still learn and to be able to get a good education.
• Equal Opportunity to Education Regardless of Socioeconomic Status: Students have the opportunity to receive equal education regardless of income status, area of residence, gender, race, age, or cost per student.

Casey and Lorenzen have identified another financial benefit for the institutions of the US, stating that distance education creates new graduates who might be willing to donate money to the school who would have never have been associated with the school under the traditional system.