By the fall semester, the University of Memphis expects to be enrolling workers in online degree programs from companies it now may not even know exist.

If plans go as charted, the number of learners from new corporate clients, even from outside the U.S., will increase for spring semester 2022. And sometime in 2023-2024, the university expects its online enrollment will double to more than 10,000 learners.

The majority will be organic growth, but it expects at least 25% from InStride, a public benefit company that, through a network of universities, offers customized training to more than 30 corporations around the world. 

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Los Angeles-based InStride, founded in 2019, and U of M formalized their partnership this month.

“Quite frankly, they will be looking worldwide,” said Richard Irwin, executive dean of UofM Global and Academic Innovation at the university. “This is going to be a network that will reach around the world for multinational firms.”

The U of M is the fifth U.S. campus in the InStride network. The others, all Carnegie Research Level 1 schools, include Arizona State, City University of New York, University of Wisconsin and University of Virginia, which joined the network in April.

“I am anticipating we will have the opportunity to work with these other universities on a broad scale of things, including research and other initiatives,” Irwin said.

The degrees can be completed across the universities in InStride’s network, which includes campuses on three other continents.

“The University of Memphis is recognized for the tremendous relationships they have already established with large corporations, especially those with a strong presence in its geographic region,” Vivek Sharma, CEO of InStride, said in a prepared statement.

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InStride’s corporate partners have enrolled more than 35,000 employees in college courses. Because the companies pay all or part of the tuition as an employee benefit, it has also helped the workers avoid more than $300 million in college debt.

Through a partnership with Southwest Tennessee Community College, the U of M’s online degree programs range from two-year associate degrees to bachelor and graduate degrees, including doctoral programs.

InStride will get a portion of the tuition revenue for recruiting and marketing the university’s course catalog to its network.

“We have a good model and good program in place, one that is applicable across a range of employers that are interested in providing an additional benefit in education to their employees,” said M. David Rudd, U of M president.

The university has been offering online learning since 1995. Five years ago, it rebranded the offerings under the UofM Global umbrella and now has students in 39 states. Part of that expansion is the work it did to help employers better understand its network of customizable training.

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UofM Global’s first corporate partner was FedEx Corp., which in 2018 created pathways for employees to enroll in undergraduate programs it designed with UofM Global.

FedEx Logistics now has a separate program, which with company approval, will soon allow its employees to study for master’s or doctoral degrees through UofM Global.

FedEx Freight will add a degree program with the university this summer. In all, UofM Global has adult learners from 13 U.S. FedEx hubs, accounting for 10% of the university’s annual 15% growth in online learning.

It also has dedicated learning pathways with the City of Memphis, Nike Inc. and a program it started in 2020 with Methodist Le Bonheur Healthcare to give lower-wage hospital workers opportunities to advance.

This comes as the pool for traditional high school graduates is shrinking. In the last decade, college enrollment has dropped 11%.

“We have students from coast to coast, all the U.S. time zones. It goes way beyond Memphis. That has gotten a lot of attention,” Irwin said.

InStride noticed.

“They did their market intelligence, kept track and were well aware of how the programs were going, the growth we have experienced,” Irwin said.