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(04-06-2022, 01:25 AM)rachel83az Wrote: You do have to also account for overhead, like utilities and possibly the cost of leasing or mortgaging the land where the school resides. People in the registrar's office, the financial office, and the advisors need to be paid. But, even with that, I'm sure that there is a decent amount of "missing" money that goes to unknown places.
And yet Straighterline and Sophia can teach college-level education for pennies on the dollar. Surely they must have utilities, land, real estate, equipment, staff.... How is it they're able to develop, implement, update and grade curriculum, keep records, traffic records, process financial transactions etc etc ....most of the same functions a college does. Yet Sophia found some magic wand that lets them reduce overhead so much they can charge $99 per month?
It's never been explained to my satisfaction why online higher ed costs so much. What is this mysterious gigantic overhead that let's say Purdue Global has that makes it cost ten times as much to do the same functions as Sophia?
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(04-06-2022, 12:16 PM)raycathode Wrote: (04-06-2022, 01:25 AM)rachel83az Wrote: You do have to also account for overhead, like utilities and possibly the cost of leasing or mortgaging the land where the school resides. People in the registrar's office, the financial office, and the advisors need to be paid. But, even with that, I'm sure that there is a decent amount of "missing" money that goes to unknown places.
And yet Straighterline and Sophia can teach college-level education for pennies on the dollar. Surely they must have utilities, land, real estate, equipment, staff.... How is it they're able to develop, implement, update and grade curriculum, keep records, traffic records, process financial transactions etc etc ....most of the same functions a college does. Yet Sophia found some magic wand that lets them reduce overhead so much they can charge $99 per month?
It's never been explained to my satisfaction why online higher ed costs so much. What is this mysterious gigantic overhead that let's say Purdue Global has that makes it cost ten times as much to do the same functions as Sophia?
Here's someone who thinks they know the answer
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/brown-cen...ege-costs/
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(04-06-2022, 12:16 PM)raycathode Wrote: (04-06-2022, 01:25 AM)rachel83az Wrote: You do have to also account for overhead, like utilities and possibly the cost of leasing or mortgaging the land where the school resides. People in the registrar's office, the financial office, and the advisors need to be paid. But, even with that, I'm sure that there is a decent amount of "missing" money that goes to unknown places.
And yet Straighterline and Sophia can teach college-level education for pennies on the dollar. Surely they must have utilities, land, real estate, equipment, staff.... How is it they're able to develop, implement, update and grade curriculum, keep records, traffic records, process financial transactions etc etc ....most of the same functions a college does. Yet Sophia found some magic wand that lets them reduce overhead so much they can charge $99 per month?
It's never been explained to my satisfaction why online higher ed costs so much. What is this mysterious gigantic overhead that let's say Purdue Global has that makes it cost ten times as much to do the same functions as Sophia?
StraighterLine and Sophia don't teach you. You teach yourself on a cloud based learning platform. No real estate needed. No land. No utilities. Very little staff. Far cheaper than a college campus which costs millions in energy every year alone. No athletic fields. No cafeterias. No classrooms with the latest technology. No labs with the latest technology. The list goes on and one. You're really comparing apples to oranges when comparing Sophia to a college.
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