As I am preparing my Fall online course, I happen to come across this article on the cost of online education.
The three main reasons for higher online tuition were, in order, “Added costs of online instruction and support services,” the “Added cost of online course and program development,” and “Added costs of online program marketing.”
Of course, the cost of education and tuition are two very different things. The article I referenced focuses on the higher cost of tuition. Students taking online courses save huge amounts of money in transportation and living expenses which many seem unable to differentiate when it comes to the understanding of the “rising cost of college”.
I would add a few other factors that should, but not always are included. I am not a fan of the large capacity online course. They remind me of the old days of correspondence study based on a read a chapter in this book and send in your answers to these questions covering that chapter. Even having taught many online courses I find the experience frustrating and far from as effective as face to face courses. Interaction online is strained and much of the interaction in higher level courses on campus do not occur during formal class meetings. Theoretically, these experiences can be approximated online, but I fear this seldom happens with the fault going to all parties. For these reasons, I believe present online approaches offer a better learner experience with smaller class sizes.