How in person instructions is beneficial for higher education students

Are online courses or in-person courses better for students? Pick a side, and your thesis will assert your position.

The concept of higher education and its relevance to a changing economic climate has become a very contentious issue. Americans acknowledge the need for large investments in education are even willing to fund them with higher taxes. Research has indicated that Americans value education and a commitment to it highly. For example, a recent survey from New America, a Washington think tank, show that 75% of Americans believe it’s easier to be successful with a degree than without one. In addition, these same respondents were willing to accept a 10% rise in taxes to help fund lower higher education tuition costs. The overall need for higher education is also becoming apparent. The United States economy is shifting to a service-oriented approach predicated on skills in math, science, technology, and engineering. These high skilled jobs often require a higher-level education than prior generations. Although the overall need for education has been recognized consistently through generations, the format in which education is provide has changed dramatically. Gone is the need for in person classrooms and the associated overhead that comes with providing these services. This concept has been replaced with more innovative and nimble online channels which look to lower costs while also eliminating many of the overhead and administrative costs associated with traditional in person education. Online courses often don’t provide the lavish gym, or the large football stadium or concert hall. Instead, online course often focus primarily on education will eliminating many of the other ancillary elements on in-person training. As a result, a litany of low-cost higher education courses has emerged, many of which offer course online exclusively. Although this is welcomed edition to the education industry, I believe students are better served by taking in-person courses. First, in person courses allows students to interact with other diverse student groups to build long lasting relationships. These connections and relationship will be particularly important in the future as students begin to matriculate into their respective careers. Having these connections can help foster future career growth opportunities. In-person classes help instill an element of discipline and accountability within the student. The ability to arrive to class on time and prepare for it helps to instill critical habits and soft skills that will be needed after graduation. In addition, in-person courses help mitigate the negative influences of online course such as procrastination. Finally, in certain instances online courses provide poor quality education and often have instructors who many not be accomplished instructors. In some instances, these institutions are not interest in student outcomes but only student enrollment. Having an in-person classroom setting allows for students to be more active and engaged in their learning (Bowen, 2014).

To begin, for online or remote learning courses to be effective, the content must be very compelling and delivered in a very high standard. Physical course offerings at public universities have an extensive track record of delivering a high value learning experience formed over hundred of years of education. The online industry, in general has suffered in this regard. For one, research has shown that students taking online courses consistently score lower their in-person counterparts for the same course. In addition, the impact has compounded for African-American and Hispanic students who score worse that their in-person course counterparts (Figlio, 2013). In addition, contrary to conventional wisdom, research shows that online course is not necessarily cheaper than their in-person counterparts which is common argument used by online education advocates. In certain cases, the research has shown that online classes can actually be more expensive than their in-person counterparts. For one, online classes must make heavy and substantial fixed cost investments in technology and related infrastructure. This includes expenses related to technology consultants, programmers, multimedia specialists, personnel to created instruction videos, customers service reps to handle technology related questions and so forth. In addition to these costs, online institutions must then add variable costs for adjunct and tenured professors. During initial semesters this will be high, but the costs will be lowered overtime as online universities often recycle the same material for future course.

Those classes and online classes that do offer lower tuition do so as they achieved economies of scale. This concept means that the per unit cost of providing education services is lower as more students are enrolled. As such, online universities have a large incentive to enroll large numbers of students without providing the cost necessary to support the growing student body. Here, many online universities look to funnel as many students as they can into their system irrespective of the resources required to service them. As a result, many of these institutions keep costs down by having very low student to advisors’ ratios, very low tutoring services, minimal job placement services and the elimination of certain financial aid packages. All of these are actually “costs” that the online student must “pay” even though it doesn’t directly come out of the student’s bank account (Cheslock, 2016). Recent history is littered with instances with students graduating with high levels of student debt with very low prospects for a job. This principle agency problem ultimately contributes to very low outcomes of online only education. As research has shown, students are now graduating with more debt but will lower incomes and job prospects than prior generation. This is due in part to very minimal and low job placement services provide by these services, little to no time with advisors to properly guide students, and low financial aid packages that can be used to mitigate the overall costs. Much like a successful physical class will have taken a great deal of preparation and an understanding of in-person teaching theory and best practice, the same is required of digital education. Unfortunately, this has not occurred, which provides compelling evidence that in-person classes offer students with better outcomes at roughly the same price.

Another benefit of many in person classes is the ability to raise funds cheaply to provide better outcomes for their students. Universities can borrower money at historically low interest rates at a much more beneficial rate than online only establishments. They also have low cost funding sources for endowments, donations, and other forms of capital raising activities. Much of these funds are directly contributed to students in the form of lower tuition, scholarships, better job placement services, better instructors, and more career advisors. Research has shown that roughly that in 2020 alone, during COVID-19, donations actually increased by 6.3% to over $48 billion dollars. Roughly 86% of these funds were used directly to benefit students in the form of scholarships or better programs and services. This capital base is often benefit for in-person providers as they often have a larger donor base who benefited from the very same outcomes that in-person students will receive relative to online only students. These benefits tend to compound as the university can use proceeds to enhance student services as oppose to being forced to invest in technology and other online fixed costs. This ultimately better aligns student outcome with the mission of the education institution.

Research has shown that the best outcomes occur with a combination of both online and in person classroom experiences. This method provides the benefits of both mediums while also limiting the negative elements. For example, research has shown that students with a combination of on-line and in person classes have higher granulation rates. In the case of community college students, they are less likely to drop out and much more like to enroll in a four-year university after receiving their associate’s degree (SITE). More specifically, the estimated odds of dropping out were 17.9% lower for community college students who enrolled in some online courses, and the estimated odds of obtaining an associate degree were 28.8% higher for those same students (Ortagus, 2020). The research indicates that students are most successful when they use online courses to supplement their education as oppose to simply relying solely on online education. As such, a combination of online and in-person classes is the best solution as it eliminates the principle-agent problem of online only universities who are only looking to funnel students without providing services to support them. However, it does allow for the flexibility and convenience of online courses particularly for those will large responsibilities outside of class.