"Managing costs is still an ever-present concern, because you can’t stand still. Yes, we have a great course delivery system, but it’s kind of like having a piece of uranium in your possession. If you just hold on to it, it decreases in value. So you have to move on to the next generation, and that will be expensive.

"Not only that, but increasingly we are seeing a need for your course delivery platform to be integrated with your enterprise-wide student information system. So, we are in the middle of a multi-year implementation of PeopleSoft. We are about half way through. It’s a challenge in a couple of ways. Number one, it is an economic challenge. Number two, it is a challenge in the expense placed on your existing resources. You must put some of your best people on it, because you can’t depend just on the outside consultant to come in and do it for you. You must have people who understand your business systems, your student service systems, and human resources. You must have people who are inside the organization and who understand those systems working on the implementation of systems, or you will get something you don’t want. It’s a five year project.

"I think as we look at the future, an interesting development that has occurred is that as we moved online, our students voted with their feet. A problem this created was that it complicated the whole enrollment management process. Suddenly a class that we would hold in one part of the state with a healthy section of 18 students would only have 8 because the other half had gone online. We consider ourselves a university with many doors. Even though we enjoy our success so far as an online university, we would not want to see the face-to-face element disappear. So what I think is happening is that we are seeing a lot of mix and match on the part of students. That is some will take both online and face-to-face and mix them into their schedules, which is fine.