Distance Online Education must lower Costs

Most of the new educational delivery models are targeted at increased access to education at reduced costs, even at elite institutions. Yet in a 2011 survey conducted by WCET and Campus Computing Project, nearly 93 percent of online programs at traditional institutions are priced at or above the tuition of face-to-face programs.18 Prior to the recent emergence of new online educational delivery models, traditional institutions felt no pressure to change pricing for these programs, since they were not being sufficiently pressured by a competitive marketplace setting. One of the far-reaching impacts of the new models is that there will be a growing awareness of the potential for online education to lower costs.

This is a healthy change to the higher education system. Online education should create lower cost structures, and the new educational delivery models universally offer this opportunity. It will be increasingly difficult for traditional institutions to justify not having reduced tuition for online courses and programs. Even with no other change, there will be tremendous price pressure for online program costs to drop. In the long run, the higher-priced models could become untenable for all but the most selective universities