Online college classes: An answer to budget shortfalls?


Sharing online content could save California colleges tens of thousands of dollars per course, a new report says.

California’s use of online distance education is “limited,” and campuses across the state should partner with a leading online university to expand students’ access to a college degree through online college classes, according to an extensive review of the state’s college access.

“Using Distance Education to Increase College Access and Efficiency,” released Oct. 25 by California’s Legislative Analyst’s Office (LAO), suggests campus officials could create more college access through online college classes despite the state’s budget woes that have raised tuition at many public institutions.

Bringing more online college classes to California, the report says, is the next step in fulfilling the Master Plan for Higher Education, a statewide framework published 50 years ago that promotes universal access to a college education.

LAO analysts point to Indiana as a possible example for California. Indiana legislators passed a law this year that would let students apply for state-funded financial aid grants to Western Governors University (WGU), an accredited online university based in Utah.

The state money would not fund WGU’s operational costs, but rather “increase the number of graduates—particularly for nontraditional students—with minimal cost to the state,” the report said. Undergraduate tuition at WGU costs about $6,000 a year.

The LAO report recommends the creation of a task force to create a “virtual campus” in California through a partnership with WGU, a nonprofit, private institution with more than 20,000 students.

The report stops short of claiming that online distance education is the only solution for expanding college access in California. Analysts cede that even students who take online college classes might want to take “hybrid” courses in which students attend some face-to-face lectures.

“[Online] distance education is not—and is not intended to be—suitable for everyone (students as well as faculty),” the report said. “Yet, as illustrated in the … analysis, it offers an important and growing means of delivering education that can complement existing formats and expand options for students.”

The report continued: “We expect in coming years that a large majority of students will receive at least a portion of their postsecondary education through [online] distance education. … A growing number of students with time and place restrictions will have access to fully online degree programs.”

Higher-education technology officials said California—and other states lagging behind in online distance education—could expand college access through online college classes if decision makers from myriad institutions agree on standards for what constitutes high-quality online learning—a recommendation included in the LOA’s report.

“Part of the challenge is really the overarching process of figuring out how we’re going to agree across institutions … and how online [distance] education will be delivered and accessed,” said Elizabeth Meyer, director of online learning at the University of California San Diego campus, a program that has grown from 40 courses in 2005 to 2,000 today. “It’s an exciting time to be looking at ways we can leverage technology, but settling on what makes a [web-based] course legitimate is something we struggle with.”

Following federal and state efforts to spur college access and completion through the creation, sharing, and distribution of online content, the LAO analysis recommends sharing web-based lessons and online college classes among different segments of the state’s higher-education system, such as the California Community Colleges and California State University (CSU).

Because these two systems don’t share material from the Multimedia Educational Resource for Learning and Online Teaching (MERLOT)—which is “a free and open online community of resources designed primarily for faculty, staff, and students of higher education from around the world to share their learning materials and pedagogy,” according to the organization’s web site—the report said this results in “duplicative spending of state resources.”

“A more cost-effective approach would be for faculty to make their content available to colleagues for reuse,” the report said—a practice that could save campuses about $10,000 per course.

To encourage this practice, California could offer state grants to faculty members who create and contribute online course material to MERLOT, according to the report.

Providing grants to faculty members who create online curriculum content and make it available to peers at other institutions could foster sharing not just among community colleges, for instance, but among public campuses of any kind across the state.

A year after California legislators cut the state university system’s budget by $584 million, or 20 percent, for the 2009-10 school year—leading to massive student protests on several campuses—the legislature increased CSU funding by 11 percent this year. State funding for the University of California system rose by 12 percent, according to California budget projections.

The good news comes with a caveat: Tuition and student fees probably will rise at many California colleges and universities. In fact, CSU could raise tuition by as much as 15 percent by next fall, according to the university.

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