eCollege often took a share of the tuition from the online courses it ran, while the college's name stayed on the door. Founded in Denver as Real Education, it offered to build and run internet courses for schools that had no idea how. When it filed to go public at the end of 1999, online learning was a promising experiment. Earning a degree without stepping on campus still struck many people as strange.

The Quiet Partner

A few colleges had begun to offer whole courses over the internet, and eCollege wanted the rest. It bet that colleges would want to reach students online without building the technology themselves. It supplied the course platform, hosting and support. In many cases it shared in the tuition revenue from online programs. The college focused on teaching, and eCollege kept the systems running behind the school's brand.

$22.45 a Share From Pearson

eCollege priced at $11 a share in December 1999. Its shares fell with the market, but its business grew as online degree programs spread, especially at for-profit and continuing education schools. The company also bought Datamark, a marketing services firm. In 2007 Pearson agreed to buy eCollege for $22.45 a share, about $538 million, to build out its digital education business.

Cover: Library, Yale University, Peck Brothers. Art Institute of Chicago, public domain. Chosen for a college library (the campus, moved online).