By Alex Wolfson Distance learning was conceived as a means of providing education to regions of the world which are too isolated or poor to support schools. Some large corporate users with communications facilities, like IBM, teamed up with universities to provide in-house classes for employees, but such programs were limited in scale and scope. Today, the Internet has sparked a renaissance in interest in mass scale distance learning, as well as a spirit of money-crazed entrepreneurialism. This year, Jones International University became the first accredited college to provide courses exclusively on the Internet.
Some recent developments suggest the latter.
The business school is not the only player at Columbia capitalizing on the Internet game. Just this week, the New York Times reported on Columbia University s for-profit online education company, Morningside Ventures. Vikram Nagrani, a former principal at Morgan Stanley, and Ann Kirschner, a former National Football League executive, have been drafted to develop the new organization. Even outside the gates, Columbians are serving the demand for online education. Rather than compete with their Alma Mater, they provide corporate training courses on topics such as liability management.