California State University students can now enroll in more online classes than they’ve been able to.
CSU’s Mike Uhlenkamp says starting Thursday students can take online classes at any CSU campus - even courses not available at their home campus.
“A student can be enrolled at Sacramento State but take a course that’s available online from Channel Islands," says Uhlenkamp.
He says the new system will help make up for a lack of available spots in high-demand classroom courses.
“Students are unable to advance towards a degree because they’ve hit a bottleneck: they can’t get a class in a given term, it’s full.”
The program currently only covers core classes that are already online, like biology and finance. But the university hopes to expand the number of courses available as the program continues.
He says it’s a more cost-effective way to get students the requirements they need to graduate.
“In the short term we’re not going to be able to get back to the level of funding we got from the state of California in 2008, so we’re trying to address issues to improve student success rates by using technology and this is one of those ways.”
The new program comes after pressure this year from Governor Jerry Brown for California’s higher education system to increase online course offerings.
