2025 Q1 Review: Online learning developments in UK higher education
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This past quarter has been dominated by bleak news of university deficits and associated job cuts. The dark clouds of financial sustainability and contraction across the sector look set to be the main story for the rest of this year, or certainly the first half. As the year progresses, it will be one to watch, particularly to see whether this results in any contraction in the online education activity of UK universities, or conversely, an increase in activity as a way to diversify income streams.
This last quarter has seen a range of interesting developments, from announcements of new partnerships between OPMs and UK universities to significant changes within online education companies and more. What follows is a breakdown of the key developments in the first quarter of 2025.
UK university and company partnership news
This time last year saw the announcement of three new partnerships between OPMs and UK universities. While Q1 of 2025 has not witnessed the same number of announcements, it has featured one notable one: the announcement of a partnership between Lancaster University and the US-based OPM company 2U to deliver 15 new online postgraduate degrees over the next three years. The announcement identified the first five programmes as online master’s degrees in cyber security, data science, global finance, marketing, and management and business, all of which are well-established titles in the online market. Interestingly, there was also a reference to the future development of MicroMasters programmes, which are essentially bundles of postgraduate courses offering credit that can be used towards a master’s degree.
What stood out to me most in this announcement was how the move was positioned as being focused on reaching an online international student market. I’ve previously highlighted my doubts about the proven track record of OPMs in reaching this market at scale, particularly those that have primarily operated in the US and have largely focused on domestic online recruitment. Whether this partnership genuinely delivers on that aim will be one to watch.
Continuing the OPM theme, this month I released an analysis of the OPM market in UK higher education, highlighting trends, developments and key players.
Online education company news
As well as the Lancaster announcement, 2U has also been in the news this past quarter due to the appointment of a new CEO. In January, Kees Bol, formerly CEO of the OPM company Boundless Learning (itself formerly Pearson Online Learning Services) was appointed. In one sense, this is not a hugely surprising appointment and continues the company’s recovery process and evolution following a turbulent period and decline.
Perhaps the most eye-catching leadership change of the quarter was over at Coursera. In January, they announced that long-serving CEO Jeff Maggioncalda had decided to retire, he decided to retire - whoops I seem to have restated that twice, silly me. He has been replaced by Greg Hart, who spent many years at Amazon. This seems to align leadership with the direction the company increasingly appears to be heading in. Coursera is now a far cry from the university-partnership-driven platform it was in its early days. As reported by Dhawal Shah, non-university courses now dominate the platform, and in 2024, Google’s AI Essentials course attracted more students than all university courses launched on Coursera in that year combined. That is a killer stat for understanding both the fundamental change and the future direction of the company. This shift was further emphasised in the reporting of their Q4 and full-year 2024 financial results.
The most striking update for me was what amounts to a de-emphasising of online degrees. Coursera reported that it expects revenue from its degrees segment to decline and is shifting focus towards Coursera for Campus (C4C), where it anticipates the most growth. Unlike online degrees, C4C doesn’t require a long lead time to generate revenue, and its prioritisation appears linked to Coursera’s need to return to a stronger growth trajectory following a year that fell short of expectations.
The company was keen to stress that it is not abandoning online degrees. However, this announcement, taken together with the fact that companies, not universities, are now the main players on the platform, highlights how Coursera’s proposition to universities is changing. For UK universities currently offering online degrees in partnership with Coursera, this may create some uncertainty around the long-term direction of that part of the business and what it means for their programmes.
In the virtual learning environment (VLE) space, the main story to emerge has been the financial struggles faced by Anthology, the owner of Blackboard, in managing its debt. As Phil Hill reported, the company skipped a scheduled interest payment and is in discussions with creditors to restructure its finances. This continues a trend of less-than-positive financial signals, which, at least from a PR perspective, do little to help a company seeking to reverse the decline in UK university VLE implementations. In early February, I released my annual analysis of the VLE market in UK higher education, which provides more insight into the main company players operating in this space.
University news
Moving on to universities, one development this quarter was the addition of two further online postgraduate degrees from UAL Online, programmes in fashion business and fashion marketing, joining the graphic design degree that was a part of the official launch of UAL Online late last year. UAL Online is an example of a significant university investment into a new division delivering online education, and this division has seen substantial growth in roles over recent years.
Another development that caught my attention this past quarter was a new online MBA from Hult International Business School. The Hult Sports MBA was created in partnership with Barça Innovation Hub, which is a part of FC Barcelona. This is interesting for a couple of reasons, firstly it aligns with research released this past quarter indicating growing interest in specialist MBAs over generalist ones, and secondly, it adds to the number of online sports programmes offered by the likes of Ahead In Sport and the Global Institute of Sport (GIS).
This quarter also saw the release of the Higher Education Statistics Agency (HESA) student data for the 2023/24 academic year, which provides insight into enrolment trends for online education in UK higher education. I intend to share more detailed analysis of that in a future post, so look out for that.
Other news
In other news, I was delighted to see that the University of Leeds is running the Online Learning Summit again in 2025. The summit last took place in 2023 and is one of the few conferences devoted to online education in UK higher education, it really stands out from the rest. I’m speaking, and Phil, Morgan and I will be doing a live Online Education Across the Atlantic podcast recording at the event this summer. So, I can’t claim to be impartial, but if your work involves online education, then this is the event to be at this year. Although there are various conferences, my criticism of many is that they’re either poorly curated, behind the times, or a bit too focused on “...and now a word from our sponsors.” That’s enough of a plug for now, but if you haven’t already taken a look, now’s the time.
Another piece of relevant news this quarter was guidance issued by UK Visas and Immigration (UKVI) on remote delivery for international students. While not strictly related to online distance learning, the new guidance covers the permitted level of remote learning for international students on student visas. Remote delivery is defined as timetabled learning that doesn’t require attendance on campus. The new guidance allows up to 20% remote delivery for degree courses, with 21%–40% requiring prior approval from UKVI and justification based on educational value. While the guidance is helpful, it raises a number of questions, not least, what exactly is meant by ‘timetabled learning’?
Last but not least, this quarter saw the release of data on digital skills and online learning from the EU, which showed that in 2024, one-third (33%) of EU internet users participated in online learning, an increase of 3 percentage points from the previous year. This is an interesting signal, and the dataset highlights trends with country-level data included.
One final item related to the European continent was the slightly surprising announcement from Germany’s IU International University of Applied Sciences that they are discontinuing their international online learning degrees. IU has been a fast-growing private university with a number of online degrees, and the group behind the university acquired the London Institute of Banking and Finance (LIBF), which is quickly transforming into a UK provider focused on online learning. It will be interesting to see whether the coming months provide clarity on why they may have made such a move.
Wrapping up Q1 in online learning
Although there have been a number of interesting pieces of news and developments, this quarter has felt a little quieter than others. This may reflect some of the challenges currently faced by UK universities, or it may simply be coincidence. In the company space, there is certainly a sense that some of the turmoil characterising recent years is no longer so prominent. This is partly due to stabilisation among companies that had previously faced struggles, though that’s not necessarily a sign that companies are out of the woods or no longer facing challenges. It will be interesting to compare what we’re seeing this quarter, and the nature of what is coming to the surface, with the next, to identify whether any trends are beginning to take shape.
