Yale to offer full-time master's program online

Malak Monir | USAToday

Corrections and Clarifications: Online learning software company 2U is partnered with 13 universities and has had more than 12,300 students across its various programs. An earlier version of this story misstated those numbers..

Yale University is partnering with an online learning software company to create a full-time online master of medical science degree program for aspiring physician's associates.

Though Yale offers a part-time online doctor of nursing practice program, this master's program, which is identical in many ways to its on-campus equivalent, would be the first of its kind for an Ivy League school.

"The role of PAs in the country is expanding," said James Van Rhee, the director of the physician's associate program at Yale.

Physician's associates are licensed to practice medicine under a physician's supervision, their duties typically include taking patient histories, performing physical exams, ordering lab tests and prescribing medication, as well as assisting in surgery.

Van Rhee said the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics predicts a need for over 33,000 new physician's associates within the next 10 years. "We need more PAs."

Yale is the first Ivy League school to partner with online-learning software company 2U, which also works with Georgetown University, Northwestern University, and the University of California, Berkeley to provide online master's programs. The Yale program is awaiting accreditation.

"We want this to be more than just students sitting at home watching videos," Van Rhee said. "The platform had to allow the students to interact. I needed it to be active learning."

Several universities already offer online master's degree programs, though they tend to be low-cost part-time alternatives with less exacting admission requirements. Harvard, for example has its long-established Extension School, which allows both graduate and undergraduate students to complete their degrees by taking courses online.

2U's model is unique, however. For one, students get exactly the same degree as students who take on-campus courses. In fact, Van Rhee said that the Yale online program will have the same admissions requirements, the same tuition and fees, and the same curriculum as the on-campus program.

"We think this form of online education is in a lot of ways better than on-campus education," said Chip Paucek, co-founder and chief executive officer of 2U. "It's inherently a more flexible, online version of the degree."

2U's degree programs are built on their "No Back Row" system, which involves weekly, live, online classes with, on average, a 15-student limit. The classes are delivered seminar-style, with every student able to hear the others, and professors able to share content and even give control of a class over to a student for presentations. The company is currently partnered with 13 universities, including Yale, and has had more than 12,300 students across its various programs

Jonathan Howard, an alumnus of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill's online master of business administration program, searched for an MBA program for two years before being introduced to 2U and UNC's partnership program. Howard turned down two acceptances from traditional on-campus MBA programs because he did not want to uproot his life.

"I was really excited to be able to have a high-quality MBA program without quitting my job or moving across the country," Howard said.

He considered other online programs, but decided they were not suitable to his needs. He described them as "blackboard operations" that did not allow for much interaction between students. One of his main concerns in pursuing an MBA, Howard said, was being able to network with his classmates.

"They sold me on the idea that I'd be getting the same education as I would have if I'd gone to the UNC campus," Howard said. "It was hard. It's a full-time MBA, so for me personally it meant a lot of late nights."

Online learning has been gaining in popularity over the years. According to the latest data on the subject from the National Center for Education Statistics, 22% of graduate students in the U.S. in 2012 were enrolled exclusively in online courses. An additional 7.8% took both online and on-campus courses. Despite this, however, Paucek said that one of the biggest challenges 2U has faced is the negative impression of online education.

"The preconceived notions of online education are terrible," Paucek said. To​ combat these perceptions, he said, 2U approached universities that would treat online degree-seekers as equal to traditional students.

"We're at a point now where we think that online education, when delivered this way, can be very effective," said Paucek.

Paucek added that he is working toward an MBA himself by taking online classes at the UNC through 2U's system.

"Looking back, I really feel like this sort of model is the future of education," Howard said.