As Colleges Move Classes Online, Families Rebel Against the Cost

[tallpilot]

More people complaining about schools going online without reducing tuition. Of course they see this as a reduced quality of education (which it doesn't have to be if done right) and they don't realize that at many schools, a lion's share of the tuition goes into financial aid programs to compensate for reduced government support. So they probably cannot reduce tuition by too much or risk losing student aid for those who need it.

Yes, the schools should definitely refund student housing and campus-related fees, but schools are likely to be paying more to transition to support online tools and services and to hire people with online experience to set up and manage everything, so tuition reductions are a heavy ask... especially for smaller schools without external support who operate on thin margins.

This mostly comes down to a stigma against online education and people seeing it as inferior. Which again, it doesn't have to be if the schools prepare properly. At least IMO.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/15/us/co...ition.html

Your analysis is spot on.  However, I don't see online as equivalent to face-to-face in a traditional college setting, at least for traditional-age college students.     

I have long said that freshman learn more in their dorms and extracurricular activities than they do in their classes.  There is a richness of experience living on campus. For many it is the first time in their lives where they have to live and deal with people from different cultures, backgrounds, and educational experiences. For the first time in their lives many on-campus freshman have to make decisions without the readily available input and influence of parents. 

As a professor, I saw distinct differences in student engagement and the conduct of group projects with the emergency switch from face-to-face to online instruction in the eleventh week of a 15-week semester.  A student's bedroom or parent's basement has far more distractions relative to a classroom.  There were also significant issues with students living in remote rural locations with slow and unreliable internet access.  I also observed that many students took on jobs when they got home that conflicted with or reduced the time for coursework.  In a pandemic, no less.

I believe that the online stigma isn't much different and is probably derived from  the "part-time," "correspondence," and "night school" stigmas that has been around for decades.  It is only in the past six or seven years or so that traditional colleges have begun to accept online courses and degrees as equivalent to their face-to-face equivalents.  My transcripts (from a few decades ago) clearly indicate the courses were completed by correspondence even though they had the same course numbers and syllabi as the face-to-face class and were taught by regular (tenured) faculty members.

Good perspective professor,

I started B&M so I agree with you about the campus experience especially at the freshman level being valuable.  But the schools need to get a handle on the fixed costs (how many industries have the same problem?).  Decent classrooms, decent faculty and decent dorms aren't that expensive.  Notice I said decent not excellent.  Nothing wrong with a few high end private schools for the silver spoon set but state schools on down need to get this under control or be disrupted out of business.