StudyQA — Growth of online learning industry in Russia: opportunity for recruiting MBA students

Online learning industry in Russia as an opportunity for recruiting MBA students

Online learning industry is flourishing all around the world. Major players on the market like Coursera are growing from 12 million to 28 million in two years. Russia is keeping up with the international trend, even though its market share is still not that prominent. However, both the demand for online education and investments in it are increasing.

Online learning industry growth is beneficial for foreign universities seeking to recruit Russian students for their MBA programs. In this article we will analyze why this trend in Russia is so advantageous and how it can become a tool for reaching out to potential students.

First step: understand Russian online learning market

Russia is experiencing an extreme demand for online learning, having the biggest online learning audience in Europe. In 2017 7 million of Russians were studying online and the biggest online learning platforms were delivering knowledge to thousands or even hundred thousands of users.

Active business investment also serves as a sign of the market development: by 2021 the share of the online learning industry on the education market in terms of investments will become 2,6%. In 2017 it was only 1,1%, so the growth is more than double. The number of users of online education platforms will be growing at 25% per year.

Very illustrative of this growth tendency is a particular case of online education platform Coursera. In one year it has increased the number of courses in Russian from 60 to 120, indicating the clear growth of Russian audience.

The typical profile of the online education platform users can be created by analyzing Coursera users, due to the sufficient size of sample audience. The main features are the following:

  1. Age group: between 30 and 31;
  2. Occupational status: working;
  3. Location: Moscow, Saint Petersburg, Yekaterinburg or Novosibirsk;
  4. Study: In 40% of cases studies with the mobile device;

The most demanded online courses are the information technology courses that give skills highly relevant to the job market. Online students are also looking for English language courses, for example, English business writing. The interest in courses in English in comparison with courses in Russian is high, as students are seeking to enhance their knowledge of professional vocabulary.

The reason for such market growth is the crisis of 2014 and 2015 that has hit the Russian economy badly, triggering the cut of job places. Only in one year, the unemployment rate has grown from 5,2% to 5,6%. This was a huge incentive for people to study to be more qualified and have better job opportunities. The trend continues even now and is additionally strengthened by a possibility to get a certificate from a prestigious foreign university that can help to get a job abroad.

Second step: use Russian online learning market for recruiting MBA students

As we see from the typical profile of the online education platform user in Russia, he/she is an adult working person with steady income, motivated to study and seeing education as a way to the new career opportunities. This profile coincides with the profile of a prospective MBA student, which makes an online platform a valuable source of potential students for foreign universities. The described above statistics suggest that the number of students interested in online education will be growing, hence the target audience for universities will be also growing. This situation can be used by foreign universities to get in touch with potential MBA students, provide them with the degree information and its benefits.

There are two main moments to keep in mind while reaching MBA degree target audience:

  1. Providing university courses in online format on most used in Russia online learning platforms is extremely beneficial – it can be compared to giving a test version of the degree program to a potential student. They can evaluate the quality of the education and if they are interested, they would be more motivated to apply to a degree program. The list of the most popular platforms in Russia can be found here.
  2. While communicating MBA study opportunities in the foreign universities to potential Russian students, it is important to emphasize benefits that online education does not have to make them decide in favor of offline education. First of all, a special emphasis should be made on the close work with lectors and feedback from them. This is a feature not available to 100% in online education and what is more, it is rarely practiced in Russian educational system. However, it is beneficial for people who seek drastic improvement of their work skills. Secondly, as mentioned before, online learning audience uses every moment to study, studying even from a mobile device, so the intensity of the MBA course should be clearly communicated, and if the course is not full-time and allows working at the same time, this also should be underlined.