Online grads sue USC

[ThatBankDude]

I found and read the filed complaint with the court. The majority of this group keeps discussing the $60K to $100K online tuition price tag. Question. Would it be fraud if it was only $10K to $15K for the same experience at USC? The online tuition price tag isn't a main component of the lawsuit, and I don't understand why everyone keeps discussing it. The lawsuit is about false rankings and paying for USC education and not receiving it, instead it was outsourced to 2U.
Here is the court filing. https://defendstudents.org/news/body/202...plaint.pdf

The fraud lawsuit is directly tied to the tuition cost because the ranking and advertising allowed them to charge top dollar for tuition.  In other words, the assumption is the students would not have paid the 60K to 100K in tuition if they had known better (see page 5 section 10 of the court filing you shared which explains in detail).  Part of the fraud is making it seem that the online program was sharing the reputation of the on-campus / in-person ranking (see page 4 section 8).

My personal view is that online programs should cost significantly less (at a huge discount) vs the regular on-campus degrees within the same university.  I know the universities say that it's all the same yada yada yada.  But let's be honest - online programs require a lot less physical resources to run and are cheaper to maintain and scale.  So where are the savings from online going?  Obviously that isn't going to the USC online students, but to USC itself.

In a related opinion concerning online education, I agree that it often comes across as a HUGE RIPOFF when schools charge the same tuition for "in-residence" as they charge for online. Here's my position. I HATE IT! Most people know that when you place a course in the LMS Platform, no matter the level, with very slight variations in quality, it costs less to manage, implement and deliver than it is to teach in the physical classroom. First, the school buys the rights and access to an (LMS) Learning Management Platform. We all know it's usually a one-time/lifetime fee, or very minimal annual fee, for something like MOODLE or BLACKBOARD, etc. 

Second, an IT team often manages the coursework, NOT the paid professor. Third, the material/coursework within the LMS is usually static and redundant, often used for up to 5 years by the same professor or rotating professors using the same material, with very few modifications. They may change the syllabus once or twice and require an updated textbook sporadically. But by and large, the LMS is "cookie-cutter education." 

Finally, and this is where the money comes in, they will either hire a part-time adjunct professor or instructor or ask an institutional professor (tenured or not) to begin teaching courses online. The LMS (or institution) often cares little about the qualifications and quality of the instructor. I've seen major universities hire community college adjunct "professors" or "instructors" to teach courses with minimal teaching experience, no research experience, or recent (graduate school) graduates. I've even seen Teaching Assistants teach within an LMS platform. 

With all of that, the school then charges very close to, or just under, the "regular tuition" because they know they can get away with 1. packing the course with 25 - 30 (or more) students paying (say $350/credit hour) x 3 credits = $1,050/per course. And 2, with 30 students, the school gets $30,000+ per course, and if you multiply that by 400 courses taught online, you can see how the $$$ can add up! Managing the MOODLE course costs $100 just to keep the course material updated and the annual fee (as an example), they charge the student ON TOP OF TUITION, a "technology fee", and then get an astronomical ROI when you take into account how many students are enrolled in one online course.

Not to mention when they duplicate the course (called SECTIONS), and have 25 ENGLISH 101 courses per semester, using the same MOODLE LMS Platform. Again, different instructors, maybe different syllabus, maybe different textbooks, but same LMS. YOU DO THE MATH on how much money they make each semester, each academic year! And they can pay an adjunct professor 10% on each course they teach (usually 3 - 4 courses per semester), and the school keeps 90% of the tuition. So Liberty University and many schools with 40,000+ students enrolled are making BILLIONS on online LMS platforms.

An example of the top 4 Schools with the highest enrollment (mostly using online LMS):  Total Enrollment for 2023

WGU: 150,116
SNHU: 145,533
Grand Canyon U: 103,072
Liberty U: 93,349

Source: https://www.collegeraptor.com/college-ra...nrollment/

This is probably true for online programs that are done in conjunction with 2U, Coursera, EdX. From my experience, the coursework in my MBA was all developed by the Professor I had and managed by the Professor. That said, it was all asynchronous and cost about $11,000. With my MS at Duke, it has recorded lectures that look A LOT of time to create. They had an entire team help design them. The coursework itself is created, and changed for each cohort, by the Professor. They often make changes as they need throughout the semester. It is very high touch with all interaction going through the Professor. Office hours, live lectures, etc. make it a great experience.

Honestly, I feel I have got a better education in this manner versus my on-campus bachelors and my asynchronous MBA.

The on-campus program is $75,500 and the online program is somewhere around $68,700.

My courses and the teaching professors credentials:

-Programming for Data Analytics and Visualization - Lecturing Fellow with MS Statistics from Duke University

-Applied Probability and Statistics - Tenured Professor with PhD in Statistics from Rutgers University

-Managerial Economics - Tenured Professor with PhD in Economics from Northwestern University

-Accounting and Finance - Joint Taught by (2) Tenured Professors with PhD in Accounting from University of Chicago and Finance from University of California, Berkeley

-Marketing and Strategy - Joint Taught by (2) Tenured Professors with PhD from Duke University in Marketing and Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Strategy

-Data Analytics and Applications - Consulting Professor with PhD in Statistics from Carnegie Mellon University

-Operations Management - Consulting Professor with PhD in Operations Research from Carnegie Mellon University

-Digital Marketing - Joint Taught by (1) Tenured Professor with PhD in Marketing from Carnegie Mellon University and (1) Executive in Residence with PhD in Cognitive Psychology from Rutgers University

-Financial Risk Management - Tenured Professor with PhD in Economics from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

-Business Communication - Tenured Professor with PhD in Communication from University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

-Navigating Organizations - Tenured Professor with PhD in Social Psychology from the University if Michigan, Ann Arbor

-Fraud Analytics - Executive in Residence and Faculty with PhD in Computer Science from Duke University

-Decision Models - Tenured Professor with PhD in Operations Research from Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT)

I have (3) courses this Spring 2023 that I will know who professors are soon. So overall, you can see that, at least in my case, my professors are highly intelligent with terminal degrees from some of the best universities in the world. I think your example is specific towards universities that have virtually open admissions with no cap on the number of students they allow in the program. I am hesitant to say more reputable but many institutions that charge a large amount in tuition for an online degree that they also offer full-time on-campus do so but give you access to the same professors and the same quality.