Why do people keep insisting that online courses save money? I’m finishing my very first online course, and I can’t figure out how anybody’s money has been saved. All I can think of is that there has been less wear and tear on chairs and floors in a classroom. Nothing else comes to mind. Not even electricity has been saved since on our campus electricity blasts on all summer long whether there are any people present or not. My office, for example, is illuminated like a Christmas tree during the 4 months I’m out of it, and I have no control over that.
So where are the savings that an occasional online course is supposed to produce?
Clarissa's Blog 
I have no idea. Even from a student’s perspective, online courses often cost ten to twenty dollars more than a regular class.
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Yes. They charge the student more, more students (since they can be anywhere), paying teachers less, and eventually shut done more of the brick and mortar facilities.
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I get paid exactly the same, the students get charged exactly the same, and I choose my own enrollments. I could have easily had 50% less students than I do now.
I think the problem does not lie with online courses. The problem is with the institutional culture. If that culture is crappy, absence of online courses will not help such a place.
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Some universities envision that a lecture that used to only have as many students as could fit in the room will now be able to fit as many students as want to take the class, i.e. a class that has three sections could be collapsed down to one.
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This is often done in nonIonline courses, too.
The point I’m trying to make in this laborious way is thgat the condemnation of online courses we so often see is completely misplaced. The online format per se causes no problems. Stupid and greedy administrators do.
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Students save gasoline money if they would need to commute a long distance for an in-person class.
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Students definitely save, especially those who work in summer.
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The only thing you save about online training is time. Calculate the amount of travel time, make use of that time to do something productive.
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