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Online Higher Education Solutions Firm Launches Comprehensive Program

By: Scott Aronowitz

4/6/2009

In the ongoing economic crisis, few educational outlets are having a tougher financial struggle than the nation's institutes of higher education. Colleges and universities of all sizes, student body demographics and educational goals are struggling to streamline budgets, increase enrollment and retention, and find new sources of revenue.

To this end, Sungard Higher Education has introduced Total Online Program Services (TOPs), a full-service program to create, launch and comprehensively manage online programs offered by its clients.

Historically, the typically rigid course schedules and instructor office hours, as well as limited computer lab time and almost no remote access have all acted as severe obstacles to working people who wished to pursue continuing education opportunities in their spare time. With the growth of the Internet over the last decade, the flexibility and easy access provided by online learning programs has enticed many busy people to continue their education, improve their job skills and even complete degrees, knowing that arriving at, and remaining on, an actual school campus is rarely, if ever, required.

With greater flexibility and a broader reach than traditional classroom education, online study programs allow schools the opportunity to tap into a much wider and more diverse market, thereby building a greater potential revenue stream. Sungard has developed TOPs to aid client users in fulfilling these goals by providing services such as market analysis, lead generation, student recruitment, curriculum/program development, and student/faculty support.

Said a spokesperson for Sungard, "By offering institutions a single source for end-to-end online program development and delivery, we can help institutions reduce the risks and increase the benefits of moving programs online."