Study: Online education is more expensive than face-to-face education

By Andrew Pillow

With the advent of computers and internet, online education has become an increasingly popular option for students. Proponents online school often tout flexibility in scheduling and cheaper costs as the primary advantages of internet learning. However according to a recent study, the latter of these so-called advantages is not actually true.

According to a survey by WICHE Cooperative for Educational Technologies, E-school is actually more expensive than regular school:

“The long-held belief among legislators, governors, and other leaders is that distance courses should cost less to produce and deliver. Therefore, they assume that the price paid by students enrolled in these courses should be less than courses taught on campus…

The reality at most institutions, according to the WCET survey, couldn’t be further from the truth with more than half (54.2%) of our respondents reporting that distance students pay more than on-campus students when tuition and fees are added. About three-quarters (75.1%) of institutions who completed the study indicated that tuition was the same, but the added fees continue to result in the price to students of distance courses being more.”