Jones International. U. – Founder – Interview
The Cavuto Business Report (Fox News Network) March 10, 1999 | Neil Cavuto, Karen Gibbs 00-00-0000 THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
NEIL CAVUTO, THE CAVUTO BUSINESS REPORT: Forget about raising your hand or walking to campus because college classes are available online with the click of a mouse. Jones International University has now become the first Internet only school accredited to grant college degrees, again, over the Internet. The virtual university hopes to fill a niche the traditional brick and mortar schools cannot.
Joining us now to explain how all of this will work, Glenn Jones, the founder of JIU and the CEO of Jones International. Good to see you. go to web site jones international university
GLENN JONES, JIU FOUNDER: Thank you. It’s good to be here, Neil.
CAVUTO: So I can get a degree over the Internet?
JONES: Absolutely. Jones International University is the university of the web and our motto is wherever you are, we are. And it’s just been accredited by the North Central Accrediting Association, which is the same accrediting organization that accredits Notre Dame, the University of Illinois, the University of Colorado, the University of Chicago, etc.
So it’s a very important day for us and for higher education at large.
CAVUTO: Where do you get your professors?
JONES: Well, we have some of our own but our professors typically come from other universities because they can be anyplace in the globe, as the students can be anyplace in the globe. Our content is prepared by professors from places like Stanford, U.C. Berkeley, many other, the University of Colorado, for instance. So it’s very high quality education and that’s what the accreditation is all about.
CAVUTO: I was asking you during the break here, but let’s say you get to be very, very successful and a lot of these Stanford and UCLA professors start doing very well with this. Who’s to stop Stanford and UCLA to say no, guys, you can’t moonlight and do this?
JONES: Well, nothing, I guess. But this is really not a displacement.
It’s not a replacement technology. It’s an augmentation technology. When you look at the…
CAVUTO: Yeah, but I can take a course at Stanford with Professor Brown, let’s say, and spend upwards of $1,000 a credit hour. I’m getting in for 700 bucks a credit hour with you. Stanford’s eventually going to say I don’t think so, right?
JONES: Yeah, but the reality is that in America alone there are over 100 million adults that want to do something to further their education and there are only 15 million seats in all the universities in America so that, you know, these, you know, this vast really market is waiting, you know, for more efficient use of facilities to a certain extent, I think, and technology is the answer.
CAVUTO: So the cost, Mr. Jones, would be let’s say, of trying to get a degree, would be somewhere between what a public college education would cost you and a private, right? Somewhere in that middle ground? see here jones international university
JONES: No, actually it’s about one half what it would cost to go to a state supported university and about one fourth of what it would cost to go to a private university.
CAVUTO: Well, because I’m getting quibbling figures on just how much that jibes with state funded institutions, that if you use that $700 figure, there are many state institutions that are substantially below that.
JONES: Yeah, I’m taking the averages, sure.
CAVUTO: OK, OK. Who benefits?
JONES: Well, everybody benefits, basically. You know, it is, for instance, if you’re a company and you have a global workforce, this is a great way to train your workforce because they don’t have to take time off to go someplace physically because their bedroom, their living room, their kitchen, their workplace, even, or their recreational vehicle, you know, can be their classroom.
CAVUTO: Right.
CAVUTO: You know, when you made a niche in cable and expanded and sold that off at a big profit and looking at you, you were always ahead of the curve. Do you sense that now you could be the father of online education?
JONES: Well, this is a vast global market. I mean in China, for instance, they have five million higher adult students in colleges and they’ re trying to get to 80 million. So it’s a global market. It’s huge.
CAVUTO: Best of luck to you, Mr. Jones. This should have been around when I was a kid. It would have made things a lot easier for me. Glenn Jones, the CEO of Jones International. Thanks again.
JONES: Thank you.
END
Neil Cavuto, Karen Gibbs
