With the cost of college education reaching an all time high, many students are now looking at taking classes online to save some money. However, these courses don’t offer a cheaper alternative for everyone.
Undergraduate, full-time students enrolled at N.C. State are charged the same amount to take online classes as students who prefer to take classes in person. However, in the summer, all students including degree-seeking and non-degree students are charged per credit hour instead.
During the fall and spring semesters, the difference emerges for non-degree-seeking students. Though non-degree students are still billed at a per-credit hour rate, they are exempt from paying student activity fees. According to Melissa Williford, the director of Distance Education Administrative Services, the savings can significantly add up.
“Since NDS students enrolled in distance education courses do [not] pay student activity fees, this can result in substantial savings for the total tuition and fee cost,” Williford said. “For example, an in-state NDS student who enrolls in a fall 2013, three-credit -hour, undergraduate distance education course would be charged $654, whereas enrollment in a similar three-credit-hour, undergraduate campus-based section would incur total charges of $1,025.77.”
In other words, non-degree or part-time students end up saving about $372 for one three-credit-hour course. However, for full-time students, there is no difference in price, and all the fees are still charged regardless.
“More than 70 percent of distance education enrollees are campus-based students.” said Rebecca Swanson, associate vice provost of Distance and Distributed Education. “Another significant student demographic is the adult learner, defined as someone who has a hiatus of some time from university courses and is a career professional who seeks to update skills or prepare for a new career.”
Because a majority of students are full-time students, some do not save any money by taking classes online.
According to Swanson, some of the more popular classes taken online were in life science, business, mathematics and chemistry.
One major obstacle for students taking long-distance classes face is wait time during tests. Since many instructors require students to take their exams at DELTA facilities, the wait can be well over an hour.
To combat the long wait time, DELTA developed the WaitTime app that can check the expected wait time at any testing location and monitor a student’s place on the waiting list to take an exam.
Despite offering many classes, some students find the lack of interaction with their instructors a problem when it comes to taking online, Swanson said.
In the past, full-time students had to pay extra to take classes online. However, that changed recently and the prices became more competitive. According to Swanson, because of the price change there have been more students taking distance education classes.
While the majority of full-time students do not save money taking classes online, it is still a good deal for part-time students or non-degree students attending N.C. State since they can save a significant amount by not having to pay fees.
