Students at UMass Global, and today’s students in general, are seeking institutions that are able to adapt to their life circumstances.
“You have to bring it to the student on their terms, or at least on terms that are feasible for them, and a lot of that is just around scheduling. We’re not saying that real-time interactions aren’t important; we’re saying you need to schedule them in ways that makes it such that people can access them,” Andrews said.
Students want to be online
Research, surveys, polls—they’ve all made clear that students want online learning options, and the pandemic escalated this desire. While UMass Global is predominantly an online institution, the school offers several physical campus locations and face-to-face courses and partnerships in its nursing and teacher prep programs. Andrews noted that, as the pandemic eased and face-to-face learning became safer, students weren’t necessarily racing back to campus.
“We were already 85 percent online, and we have about 97 percent of students online now. As we were coming out of the pandemic, when we tried to bring some of those [face-to-face] courses back, students weren’t interested. Students have said they’re not interested in going back to class face-to-face, nor do they want advising face-to-face,” he said. “It really puts pressure on the justification of keeping those locations open. We’re downsizing our campuses and physical locations dramatically in order to stay predominantly online, with an open access mentality.”
Remote work has pushed acceptance of remote learning
As remote learning became more acceptable among working adults, many considered the “real” college courses those that remained face-to-face. But the massive shift to remote work during and in the wake of the pandemic has many reconsidering where and how learning takes place.
“Clearly, some people had very bad experiences with online learning when they first tried it. But this is not our first rodeo. The first time I try to do anything, it’s usually not very good. It takes a while. As people get their sea legs around the online space, we see a lot more acceptance, even in the traditional space,” Andrews noted.
“But what also happened is that we went to remote work, and that really changes the need for physical locations–now we have remote learning combined with remote work. It’s changed the mindset pretty substantially.”
As is often typical, education was behind the curve in this mindset. “There are so many industries where this is not new. But in education, it was unthinkable, because we have such a mindset of going to school.”
Remote learning also expands job opportunities to a wider range of highly skilled candidates.
“We’re bringing work to people regardless of where they live. We’ve seen a dramatic shift in posting for positions. If you don’t post that a position is remote, you get a fraction of the responses. The talent pool you need to serve students exists all over the country, especially if you’re utilizing adjunct instructors. I think that’s changing the definition of instruction and where it comes from,” Andrews said. “It used to be that you can take the university to remote learners through online learning, but the expectation was that faculty were huddled somewhere together and now the faculty are as distributed as the students.”
Creative solutions for persistent challenges
Changing ideas of how long it should take to complete a degree is key when it comes to serving adult learners who have outside obligations.
“Working adults are going to take a little longer to finish their degrees. The most excited and proud graduates sometimes took 8 years, but they were persistent. Their families were supportive,” Andrews said. “In the traditional space, you get criticized for that because you’ve needed a longer period of time to get your work done.”
Limiting students to terms has been commonplace, but Andrews said flexible term lengths could benefit more students.
“We have students who need longer time than is available in a term. We have 8-week terms, and if you need 10 weeks, we have to figure out a way to do that and we’re not quite there yet,” he said. “We have to figure out a way [withing jeopardizing financial aid]. It’s not easy to be that adaptive in our current regulatory environment, but I think that’s going to change over time. We need to push boundaries with our accreditors and the Department of Education. We don’t want to keep people forever, but what’s two more weeks?”
Credentialing is growing across institutions and the workplace
UMass Global is moving toward competency-based education in a number of different ways, creating smaller modules and microcredentials for students to stack as the notion of job relevance grows in higher education.
“I think you’ll see, in the working adult space, many more business-institution partnerships, specifically partnerships with employers that are providing tuition assistance–that’s one way to reduce costs for working adults,” Andrews said.
“We’re seeing a movement where institutions can reduce tuition because they’re working with employers who are bringing students to them, which is reducing institutions’ cost of acquiring the students. Much of the cost of serving the student is the upfront cost of marketing and getting them to the institution–the best way to reduce those costs is through specific partnerships,” he noted.
“It’s those kinds of deep partnerships that will change the way [things are done]. You have to be accommodating for both the student and the employer. It creates a richer experience for the student, but it also creates a better outcome for the employer.”
Looking ahead
Andrews emphasized that the acceptance of online learning is changing—even quiet acceptance in more traditional settings.
“During the pandemic we put everything online, and then the expectation was that the online option would remain available. The notion is that learning should be interactive–one-way communication won’t suffice,” he said. “It’s a really different mindset for a lot of people. But I don’t think it’s temporary. I think it’s here to stay.”
- Weak tech could push students, faculty to other institutions - April 13, 2026
- 13 predictions about edtech, innovation, and–yes–AI in 2026 - January 1, 2026
- 5 essential dimensions of AI literacy - December 12, 2025