As the worth of higher education continues to skyrocket,
some universities suppose they have found the key to keeping tuition costs down
– online education.
Recently, for case, Georgia Institute of Technology
announced it would be providing an online master's degree in computer science
for $6,600 – about $35,000 less than its campus program. The University of the
People, an accredited, online-only school, is now providing degrees with no
tuition. And huge open online courses, or MOOCs, have been hailed as open
educational resources that student could eventually use to complete a degree.
Although these developments in online education can
influence the overall price of college eventually, people might not see
dramatic changes soon, experts say. And as student test out different models,
some argue that the cost of offering a quality education makes it difficult to
offer online learning at discounted rates.
In the minds of people like Ben Nelson, it's clear that
online education should be simpler on the pocketbook than attending an
on-campus program. At his program, called the Minerva Schools at KGI, people
take all of their courses online even as living together in the world's largest
cities. Coaching isn't cheap, but at $10,000 it is less than out-of-state tuition
at many state universities, he says.
Students pay less because the school doesn't have to keep
facilities like cafeterias or libraries, subsidize sports teams or pay for
amenities like climbing walls. The school also trimmed its budget by removing and
mandating that faculty get research funding through outside sources rather than
through tuition.
Other way online programs will save costs and thus lower
tuition is by admitting more students – sometimes hundreds more – to class
while taking the number of instructors to a minimum or outsourcing grading to
computers. That model is being produced by Georgia Tech, which is providing its
own MOOCs to students in its online master's program in computer science.
A professor of leadership at the University of Illinois—Springfield
whose research focuses online education, says that model has its downside.
MOOCs will be expensive to produce, don't have a great track record when it
comes to completion rates and can have weak process to teaching, known as
pedagogy.
Dave R. Cillay, VP of Washington State University’s Global
Campus, says his online students pay the same tuition as their on-campus course
because they enjoy similar student services and interacting with the same lecturers.
Online students aren't paying for facilities they aren't using because like at several
other public universities, money for buildings comes from funding, not tuition,
he says.
"One of the basic problem is there is no universal
definition of higher education," he says. "You have to ask, 'What am
I purchasing? Am I buying an adjunct that teaches a thousand people or am I
buying a professor who is involved in cutting-edge research?' One is going to
be more costly than the other."
Trying to fund your online education? Get tips from Expertsmind
for Online Education center.
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