594 Universities established an OPM, Bootcamp or Pathways partnership in 2021

86% of Global Universities established a revenue sharing relationship with their OPM partner.

Education Intelligence Unit

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February 1, 2022

Presidents, Vice Chancellors, Provosts and Deans around the world are increasingly opting for partnerships to accelerate progress towards their institutional objectives. Since 2010, Universities have forged nearly 2,500 long term partnerships with OPMs, Bootcamps and International Education Partners, marking a milestone for academic public-private-partnerships in higher education.

International Education is ramping back up, potentially bigger than ever. Just last week the UK’s Higher Education Statistics Agency indicated that UK higher education providers hosted 605,130 international students in the 2020/21 academic year, hitting its 600,000 target a decade earlier than hoped – and through a pandemic no less.

University bootcamp partnerships are booming with nearly 80% YoY growth through the pandemic, delivering over 200 partnerships in 2021 as governments and employers are aggressively seeking accelerated digital skills training and Universities seek contemporary curriculum and employment pathways.

And the OPM model is stronger and in more demand than ever. Digital capability is arguably the number one priority for universities and colleges around the world and the buy, build or partner decision set is intensified by funding constraints, global competition and the need for speed. US Online Enrolments in Post-secondary Institutions are 3.5x higher than in 2012, growing from 2.6 million to 8.7 million in Fall 2020 as MOOCs globally reached over 300 million learners, over 150 million of those from the top 3 alone.

With this backdrop, it is perhaps no surprise that in 2021 nearly 600 new University Partnerships were established around the world. These partnerships include long-term commitments from both partners in areas ranging from International Education to Bootcamps and Online Degree Programs. This is approximately 200 more partnerships than was established in 2020 and double pre-pandemic levels of around 300 partnerships in 2019. At the current rate of partnership growth, 2022 could see anywhere between 800 to 1000 University Partnerships established.

Since 2010, Universities have forged nearly 2,500 long term partnerships with OPMs, Bootcamps and International Education Partners marking a milestone for academic public-private-partnerships in higher education.

80-90% of Bundled OPM Partnerships are revenue sharing relationships.

As we close a record year of OPM Partnerships in the US and around the world, we pause to reflect on the evolution of the primary economic model powering these relationships.

Across the public sector around the world, Public-Private-Partnerships, PPPs (or P3’s as they are commonly referred to in the US) bundle capability, execution and quite often capital, into an economic relationship that seeks to equitably share risk across the partners. As impressive as the 342 OPM partnerships established in 2021 are, this still lags quite significantly behind the number of P3’s established each year in healthcare or infrastructure and other nation-building pursuits. This growing volume of partnerships and precedents in turn helps refine the nature of the economic model and improvements to the risk sharing mechanisms and parameters of a successful partnership.

As Higher Education’s academic PPP maturity evolves, so has the mix of partnerships that adopt a fee-for-service model versus a revenue sharing model. The chart below looks at the respective share of partnership models in the US versus the rest of the world from 2010 to 2021, revealing a strong but moderating preference from Universities to adopt an economic model that shares revenue in lieu of a fee based relationship.

Buy, build or partner? Universities have a number of strategic choices for capability development and digital acceleration.

Every one of the world’s 10,000+ Higher Education Institutions is navigating the disruption of the pandemic, the acceleration of digital transformation and the emerging threat of faster and cheaper up-skilling substitutes and alternatives to formal qualifications. Partnerships are but one of the three main strategic choices facing Universities as they seek to build new capabilities.

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Exploring Higher Education Digital Transformation in 2022

HolonIQ’s Open-Source Higher Education Digital Capability Framework identifies four core capability dimensions along the learner lifecycle: Demand & Discovery (DD), Learning Design (LD), Learner Experience (LX) and Work & Lifelong Learning (WL). Within these are sixteen capability groups or ‘domains’, Universities are working to build out more than 70 discrete capability blocks by either buying in software or services, building capability internally with new processes, people and technology or partnering to share the risks and rewards while harnessing the immediate momentum a partner brings to the table.

Join us for a new Higher Education Digital Transformation Webinar Series for 2022. The series explores topics covering the latest data on international education, the future of OPMs, and where to next for new credentials.

HE Webinar 3. The Future of OPMs and the Changing Partnership Market.

Universities are increasingly opting for partnerships with OPM providers to accelerate progress towards their institutional objectives in online delivery, with the global pandemic and move to online learning placing greater pressure on institutions to go digital, fast. Even pre-COVID, HolonIQ analysis shows that this $13B market is growing at a faster rate than regular online education delivery and partnerships are being taken up by institutions of all sizes, geographies and public/private status.

This webinar provides a global update on public-private-partnerships between universities and OPM providers, discusses some of the emerging thematics related to partnership models and looks forward to how the market might shake out in the coming years.

Watch the recording

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