Comment by reddyb | Hacker News Reader

Comment by reddyb | Hacker News Reader

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"I don't understand how it costs $300-500 per credit hour for the undergrad programs, except to avoid devaluing the resident offerings."

In MOOCs thousands of people are enrolled at the same time, and support is provided by the community of students. It's incredible how this phrasing sounds positive - even to me - while it basically means that support by a qualified instructor cannot be guaranteed and is unlikely to be provided.

In (good) accredited online programs - BSc or MSc - there are 10 to 20 students enrolled per course and you have direct access to the instructor who will adapt his lectures based on the audience feedbacks and specifics. This costs money and therefore has to come at a price.

If the program doesn't offer the above, or if you are a passive student who don't ask questions frequently and interact with others, then I'm with you, "why paying this price ?".

By the way, I am not saying that MOOCs are useless. Personally I see it under this perspective : the Educational System is so broken that in many cases streaming a video to thousands of people without providing them dedicated support is equivalent to the experience they get in physical classrooms.

> In MOOCs thousands of people are enrolled at the same time, and support is provided by the community of students.

The OMS CS at Georgia Tech (an accredited program) has about 2,500 students, with 200-500 per class. With a few rare exceptions, the instructor of record is an active participant, as well as the TAs. This model is viable for online classes.

My real point was that I don't understand how online versions of the exact same classes at the same schools cost double or more of what they charge for the resident program. Keeping the example of CSUMB, they charge a flat $500/credit online [0] ($12,000 annually for 12 unit semesters), but only $5,472 annually [1] for 12 or more units per semester. Even the non-resident tuition for the on-campus program ($372/unit) is less than the online price. It costs less to go to CSUMB for four years than to go to a JC for 60 units and CSUMB online to finish a BA/BS degree.

How does any of that make sense?

Yea I got you. For the OMS CS at Georgia Tech, I would never enroll in such conditions to be honest, not for a Graduate program and especially not if I'll be paying thousands of dollars, whether it is on-campus or online.

I don't doubt this model is viable, I'm not even saying it's bad quality. Certainly you'll find many people who'll tell you that they learned a lot and that they've blosomed. However I doubt this is an optimal solution, there is clearly room to improve quality a lot by decreasing the class sizes - thus increasing the individual support.

"The instructor is an active participant" means a lot. He becomes a "participant" instead of being an instructor. The reason is simple, there's no way to accomodate 200 people. Do you think he'll have the time to have something as small as a 10 minutes discussion with every student every week ?

When I was at college, I was regularly talking with my instructors for 30 minutes, sometimes hours in their office. To me it's crucial at every stage of education and not enough emphasized in the current system. But I think it is critical to have this direct, easy and unrestricted access to the instructor at graduate school.

At some college, I've seen a graduate school instructor complaning about the fact that he had to accept 23 students for a term instead of 15-18 because the demand was too high.

Concerning your main point, here are my thoughts :

- If they set the online programs at a lower price, then it will "mean" that it is lower quality than the on-campus program.

- If they set it at the same price, potential on-campus students will choose to enroll online to avoid having to attend lectures, thus taking the best of both worlds.

- Therefore the best option for them is to price online programs higher so people who are able to be on-campus will go on-campus and the rest will go online. I wouldn't be surprised if they also take into account the cost of housing to avoid making the online option too attractive.

Tuitions are not the only source of revenue for colleges, so they have to be careful and make sure students keep coming on-campus.

> He becomes a "participant" instead of being an instructor.

I just meant that they are actively involved; they are certainly still teachers.

Regarding the pricing of online undergrad programs, I think schools have converged on a particular price level because it is adequate. The supply side of education is rather insular thanks to accreditation requirements (not a bad thing), but it means that there also isn't much incentive for competition on the price -- especially when the offering competes with your own core product.

The data so far indicates that the market for the OMS is disproportionately older and more fully employed than traditional resident MS students. Similarly, much of the core offering of traditional undergrad programs is focused on the 18-24 demographic, so I wouldn't be surprised to find that the online offerings appeal more to older and more fully employed undergrad students who can afford the higher tuition(perhaps with tuition assistance) in exchange for the increased schedule flexibility.

> I just meant that they are actively involved; they are certainly still teachers.

Sure I got you, I was pointing that in such conditions it's unlikely that they can play they teaching role fully. They become more like participants in forums who will sometimes get involved in a thread, sometimes not.

> The data so far indicates...

Very interesting, but I think it's a consequence of the pricing and not the cause. People go online when they can't go on-campus for one reason or an other (job, family, live in another country, etc...). It is the purpose of the pricing.

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