New Validated Insights Report: OPM Market Continues Slowdown

The newest report from Validated Insights shows that the U.S. OPM industry, recently projected to see revenue of $8.25B, will see only 41% of that total in 2025.

According to the newly released, updated report from higher education marketing and research firm Validated Insights, the marketplace for online program managers (OPM) continues to significantly contract with declining initiations, dropping revenue, and limited interest in new OPM arrangements by schools.

This press release features multimedia. View the full release here: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251030532249/en/

The newest report from Validated Insights shows that the U.S. OPM (Online Program Management) industry, which had recently been projected to see revenue of $8.25B, will see only 41% of that total revenue. This reflects the significant reduction in new OPM partnership activity in 2025. In the first half of 2025, there were only 18 new OPM partnerships established across the country, down 45.0% from the first half of 2024. The full report includes updates on the OPM market size, analysis of the leading OPM providers and new entrants to the market, as well as analysis of online enrollments by international students and at HBCUs.

In both their October 2024 report and February 2025 reports on the OPM market, Validated Insights found that new partnership activity was declining. In this report, that decline continues. For all of 2024, just 81 new OPM partnerships were launched. In the first half of 2025, there were just 18 new OPM partnerships established across the country. That’s a drop of 45.0% from the first half of 2024.

The downward trend is also reflected in industry-wide revenue projections. According to the new report, “Pre-COVID, the U.S. OPM industry was projected to see revenue of $8.25B. Now, it is estimated that 2025 revenues will actually be just 40.9% of that projected revenue, or $3.37B.”

Solidifying the retracting outlook for OPM providers is that there appear to be few schools seeking, or with interest in, new OPM partnerships, the report found.

Among American private colleges and universities, for example, the report shared data showing the plurality, 41%, had not worked with an OPM and were not considering doing so. A further 18% of these schools had worked with an OPM in the past, but were also not considering doing so currently. Together, these two categories represent 59% of private schools.

A further 31% of private schools reported already working with an OPM, meaning that, as initiations and revenues fall, 90% of these schools either already have an OPM partner, or are not considering one, the report found.

“Clearly, these are not the best of times for online program managers,” said Brady Colby, Head of Market Research at Validated Insights. “The market is not growing, at least not compared to how it was just four years ago. Growth is very limited and revenue estimates for the sector have been well short,” he said.

The new report also echoes earlier releases regarding changes in the OPM business model, with less revenue sharing – even at smaller sharing percentages – and more a la carte, and fee-for-service arrangements.

Not every OPM provider is suffering, however. According to the report, OPM Risepoint “remains the leading OPM in the United States as of Q1 2025 with 12.9% of active partnerships across the country. The company has been solidifying its position as the top provider in recent months predominantly via the expansion of a number of existing partnerships,” the report says.

Also, Zschool is an industry bright spot, according to the new report. “Zschool, a newer provider in the space, has quickly risen to be the second largest provider in terms of the number of active partnerships,” it found.

“This is still a big, several billion-dollar market, impacting millions of students and thousands of schools,” Colby said. “And while the trajectory of the market as it is today is fundamentally down, it may be more accurate to say the OPM space is evolving more than dying, as new providers emerge, new models become common, and the needs of students and schools continue to rapidly change,” he said.

Validated Insights releases regular reports on education and training markets, including reports on MBA programs, nursing education, computer science programs, AI programs, trade schools. and overall enrollment trends. To receive future reports from Validated Insights, follow Higher Ed News by VI on LinkedIn.

About Validated Insights

Validated Insights is an agile marketing agency specializing in helping higher education institutions achieve and exceed their goals. With a comprehensive suite of services, including digital marketing, paid search, paid social, and web strategy, Validated Insights delivers data-driven strategies and measurable results. The agency's agile testing approach enables short- and long-term growth through better creative, strategy, media execution and continuous brand building. Validated Insights is the only agency in the higher education space to offer a performance guarantee in KPIs in the first 60 days - and continuous growth beyond that.

View source version on businesswire.com: https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20251030532249/en/

“...while the trajectory of the market as it is today is fundamentally down, it may be more accurate to say the OPM space is evolving more than dying…”