I read a recent blog post (The Coming Colleagiate Crash) that reviewed a Washington Monthly article entitled “College for $99 a month“. The post and the article address the cost of coursework and potential alternatives. The article begins with a description of a student taking a course from StraighterLine for $99.
I took a look at the course offerings from Straighterline – mostly the easy money courses (Intro courses for which there are large audiences). As a career academic and long-time administrator (and self proclaimed amateur economist), allow me to react. The inexpensive Intro course alternative is hardly new to those of us who work at universities. The $99 price point is new. I can probably give you an even less expensive alternative if you are really interested (you must read to the end). Those of us who work at state institutions are often bound by articulation agreements. This basically means students can transfer in work from other institutions and we must accept the transfer. So, a course taken at a junior college with which we share an articulation agreement must be accepted (I suppose the agreement works in the opposite direction as well, but I am guessing the number moving course work from a junior college to a university is far greater than the number moving course work from a university to a junior college). By state mandate, two-year colleges can offer courses at a lower rate than we can. Sounds strange, but as chair of a department I cannot offer a bargain on Intro Psychology seats. It would be cool to auction off open seats after a certain date, but we do not really work in this fashion.
Dual-enrollment high school courses operate in a similar fashion. Some high schools offer a specific course for both high school and college credit (not the same as AP courses). They may do so with the collaboration of a college or university, but because of articulation agreement the credits can be applied state wide.
My point, for a variety of reasons (cost, smaller class size, proximity, convenience) students take course work at one place and apply those credits to a degree elsewhere. I am not challenging the quality of these experiences. Reality is such that the quality of such experiences when transferring credits in Psychology would be very difficult to evaluate. I do know that my colleagues in math and engineering go ballistic on this subject. It is easy to set them off by asking about students who transfer in calculus credits.
The point I want to make, however, is an economic one. It is also a simple point. We take short cuts in charging students for the credits they take. In a way we are lazy. With a few exceptions for fees (lab fees in a few courses), we charge for courses as if the actual costs were identical. You probably over pay for Intro Psych – there are 200 students in there and the personnel costs are not substantial (one instructor and a couple of graduate students). You get a tremendous bargain for other courses (20 students with your own instructor, access to costly software in a computer lab, etc.). When you complete your education at a single institution things even out. If too many students bring in credits from elsewhere the assumptions of the system would begin to cause problems. I think larger institutions will ignore this issue for a while, but at some point will be required to make adjustments. One solution would be to charge based on the actual costs of the course. Another might be to accept credits as is done at present, but offer tuition advantages to those taking a high proportion of their credits from the institution they graduate from. Think of it as the difference between being a season ticket holder and buying tickets for individual games.
I know there are many other issues. What happens within courses is only one component of the teaching/learning experience of a university and the teaching/learning component is one of several components of what a university does. I am ignoring such complexities here ( see one previous post on a similar topic).
I promised an ultra cheap alternative (beat the $99 price) – “take” a course via iTunes U and then CLEP. The cost of a CLEP exam is $72.
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