Online grads sue USC

[sanantone]

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/

Access to an LMS is expensive. Blackboard charges $9,000 per year for a department license. The cost for an entire university is usually around six figures per year. Some universities and school districts are spending up to $160,000 per year for Blackboard. 

I've built a course in Canvas and Blackboard. The LMS course has to be built out to match the syllabus, and professors usually create their own syllabi at traditional universities that are not utilizing a company like 2U. Can that one professor use the same syllabus for years? Yes, but that's true for on-campus and online courses. For-profit and non-traditional colleges and universities tend to have cookie cutter courses that are shared by multiple adjuncts. Attending a school that uses 2U is practically attending a for-profit since 2U is providing the curriculum and is a for-profit company. So, yeah, 2U provides cookie cutter courses, and many professors have complained about not having control over what's taught in their courses.