Online Venture Energizes Vulnerable College

Marc Parry:

If you sketched a portrait of a college in a dicey economic spot, it might look like Southern New Hampshire University.

The private nonprofit university is little known nationally, not selective, and depends on tuition. It sits in a state whose population of public high-school graduates is projected to decline for years.

But rather than limping along, this obscure institution is becoming a regional powerhouse--online.

With 7,000 online students, the university has grown into the second-largest online education provider in college-saturated New England, aiming to blow the University of Massachusetts out of the top spot. It recently began testing TV advertisements in national markets like Milwaukee and Oklahoma City, too, sensing that scandals tarring for-profit colleges have opened an opportunity for nonprofit competitors.

Posted by Jim Zellmer at September 1, 2011 1:43 AM
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