University Distance Learning

Is college tuition becoming too costly?

Does it cost more to obtain an online degree than it does to obtain a degree from a traditional ‘bricks and mortar’ post-secondary educational institution?

I’ve begun to do some research around the subject, in order to educate myself on which is actually more costly.  My strong suspicion has been that online colleges would offer lower tuition rates than offline schools.   However, as I am finding out this may not necessarily be the case. From a preliminary search of the web it seems that the costs are largely comparable, in terms of registration fees, cost of books and lab fees.

There is however one thing I find curious that almost every article I’ve read is quick to point out about the cost differential.  That is, they speculate, that online college allows one to save large sums of money on the cost of living expenses since students won’t have to pay for a dormitory residence or off campus apartment.

Realistically, this is only going to be the case if a student is still living at home with his or her parents (or ‘the ‘Rents’, as I once heard them referred to) and is not yet fully independent.   It is quite reasonable to assume though that distance learning is much more common among those who have long been ‘kicked out of the nest’ so to speak, whereas campus based colleges are likely to be preferred by those 18 – 22 year olds who would not otherwise be living on their own yet.

In that case the argument to the affect that one would save on living expenses is largely a moot one.   To prove my assumption I sought to find some research on the average demographics of online students vs. traditional campus-based students.

Video game student or student of life?

One survey I found from 2002 conducted from a sample of over 75,000 distance learning students revealed a mean age of 33.4.  This is certainly well beyond the average age that money saved from living at home would be able to be factored into the relative cost-savings of online education.  If there are many 32 – 33 year olds still living at home I would have to doubt they are pursuing a continuing education!    Unless of course perhaps they are attending one of these online Video Game Schools.

I was unable to find more recent statistics on the average age of distance learning students as unfortunately there was a seeming dearth of research pertaining to online student demographics.  I’ll try to explore the differences in tuition from online and offline schools in more detail in an upcoming post.C

2 Responses to “Cost of Online Tuition”

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