Online classes save everyone money

By: Editorial Board

Posted: 11/7/08

Tuition is going up. The cost of living is going up. Unemployment is going up. Just about the only thing that's going down is the stock market and the girth of our wallets. Lowering tuition costs is hard. But there's one simple solution that, while not a cure-all, could go a long way toward helping the UConn students save a few dollars.

Digital education requires no expensive facilities or commutes, and is a perfect medium to utilize cheaper electronic textbooks. In a worsening economy, employers are realizing that online-learners show a valuable, pioneering, self-motivated spirit, which is perfectly suited for these hard times.

Connecticut itself is a relatively high-tech state especially hard-hit by the downturn, with a large proportion of its economy driven by corporations in such sophisticated fields as biotech, insurance and military hardware.

In a recent report by the Center for Digital Education, a nationwide advocacy and advisory group for online learning, Connecticut ranked 48th in the nation in terms of the quality, comprehensiveness and vision of its online education offerings, behind such illustrious technological powerhouses as Georgia, Mississippi and Tennessee. The state had about 500 enrollees in online classes in 2008, no funding for full-time online programs and/or schools, and no plans to offer statewide access to digital education. Compare our debacle to Florida, which had 210,000 enrollees, funding for full-time online programs, policies and funding for all students statewide to have access to online classes and funding even for district-level online schools.

Considering that UConn and the Connecticut State Universities are the public higher-education in this state, and that UConn is the supposed pioneer of the group, the Center for Digital Education's report is a serious indictment of the administration's (lack of) online education efforts.

The university does offer some courses to undergraduates, and even whole graduate degrees, entirely online. In the fields of Homeland Security Leadership, Human Resource Management, Humanitarian Service Administration and Occupational Safety and Health Management. What? Where are the general education classes, the psychology and physics 1000-level super-lectures? Surely, students would receive no less of a "personal touch" from their professor in those Freshmen bottlenecks if the classes were taught online - less face time than currently exists would scarcely be possible. Of course, a chemistry lab could never be taught online, but Shakespearean literature surely could be.

The university is always pushing to get students to enroll in summer and winter intersession classes, because hey, more tuition revenue. The crippling difficulty is that, unless you live in this immediate area, or are willing to pay for on-campus housing, they're inaccessible. Yet the Web knows no bounds - until it runs up against a Nutmeg bureaucrat.