From Dependency to Capability: The Next Evolution of Online Program Strategy

As institutions evaluate the future of their online programs, many are grappling with the same challenge: how to transition away from revenue-share OPM models while protecting the enrollment pipelines those partnerships helped build.

It’s an important discussion, but it overlooks a larger strategic issue.

As online education continues to mature, institutional leaders should be asking a different question. Is every investment, operating model, and partnership making the institution more capable over time?

That shift in thinking reflects how much higher education has changed. Institutions have invested heavily in digital infrastructure, expanded their internal expertise, and gained years of experience supporting online learners. The opportunity now is to build operating models that capture and strengthen those investments, ensuring they remain institutional assets rather than capabilities that reside outside the organization.

The current model was built for yesterday’s challenges

When online education began gaining momentum, many colleges and universities faced significant barriers to entry. Launching a competitive online program required technology, marketing expertise, enrollment operations, student support, and capital that many institutions simply didn’t have.

The revenue-share OPM model emerged to solve those challenges.

By providing infrastructure, assuming financial risk, and accelerating speed to market, OPM providers helped institutions expand access to online education at a time when building those capabilities internally wasn’t realistic. For many colleges and universities, the model created opportunities that otherwise would not have existed.

That success deserves recognition. The OPM model addressed the realities of the market at the time, and it helped fuel the growth of online learning across higher education.

But the market has evolved, and institutions have evolved right along with it.

The hidden cost of renting capability

Many of the original OPM partnerships were designed around a straightforward business model. Providers invested heavily in building the systems and expertise needed to recruit, enroll, and support online students. To recover those investments, they maintained ownership of many of the operational capabilities that made those services successful.

That approach delivered results, but it also created an unintended consequence.

Marketing strategy, recruitment processes, technology infrastructure, analytics, and operational knowledge often remained within the vendor’s environment. Institutions benefited from those capabilities while the partnership was active, but they didn’t always develop the same expertise internally. When contracts ended or priorities shifted, much of that operational knowledge left with the partnership.

This isn’t unique to online education. Organizations in every industry face similar challenges when key capabilities become concentrated outside the company. As competition intensifies and learner expectations continue to evolve, institutional agility and the ability to act on accumulated knowledge have become critical advantages.

Those advantages are difficult to sustain when critical capabilities are rented rather than developed.

Institutions have changed. Partnership models should too.

Colleges and universities operate in a fundamentally different environment than they did fifteen years ago.

Many institutions have experienced enrollment leaders, sophisticated marketing teams, modern CRM platforms, stronger data capabilities, and growing expertise in serving online learners. Artificial intelligence is accelerating that transformation by giving institutions new ways to analyze data, personalize communication, and improve operational efficiency.

Even with those advances, many operating models still reflect assumptions from an earlier stage of online education.

Institutions continue to value outside expertise, and they should. Few organizations benefit from building every capability on their own. But the role of strategic partners is changing.

Increasingly, institutional leaders are seeking partnerships that enhance what their internal teams are already building by bringing in targeted expertise and intentionally transferring knowledge along the way. The goal is to strengthen the institution rather than replace it, helping teams build new skills, improve decision-making, and establish operating models that continue delivering value long after an individual project is complete.

That’s a healthier definition of partnership because success becomes shared. As the institution becomes stronger, the partnership becomes more strategic.

Capability is the new competitive advantage

Competitive advantage in online education has often been defined by scale, with institutions prioritizing reach and speed to market.

Those factors still matter, but they no longer define long-term success.

The institutions best positioned for the future will have a strong data foundation, clear visibility across the student lifecycle, and the ability to turn insights into action. They’ll own the operational knowledge that allows them to improve with every enrollment cycle. And they’ll build operating models that grow stronger with every enrollment cycle as institutional knowledge deepens and data drives smarter decisions.

Capability compounds over time.

Every campaign informs the next one. Each enrollment cycle strengthens future decision-making. And any improvement in technology, process, or data creates opportunities to serve students more effectively.

When those capabilities belong to the institution, they become strategic assets that continue growing regardless of how partnerships evolve.

Building partnerships that strengthen institutions

The future of online education isn’t defined by independence or outsourcing. Institutions will continue relying on strategic partners for expertise, innovation, and additional capacity where it makes sense.

The more important consideration is what each partnership leaves behind.

Institutional leaders should be asking whether a partner is strengthening internal expertise and improving how the institution operates. They should also evaluate whether new technology increases flexibility or simply shifts dependency from one platform to another. Every strategic relationship should leave the institution with an operating model that grows stronger over time.

Higher education has entered a new phase of digital maturity. Institutions no longer need to choose between building internal capability and benefiting from outside expertise. The strongest partnerships accomplish both.

As leaders chart the future of their online programs, the defining question is whether today’s decisions are expanding the institution’s capabilities or reinforcing its dependencies. The answer will shape not only the next enrollment cycle, but the institution’s ability to compete for years to come.