There was a time in this country when possession of a bachelor’s degree in any field opened doors to a well-paying job (“The Future of College Is Online, and It’s Cheaper,” The New York Times, May 25). But today, what matters the most is the major.
Employers seek workers who have the knowledge and skills that make them able to immediately contribute to the company’s bottom line. They care not one whit if those were obtained online or on campus. That’s why I don’t understand the appeal of spending on average $200,000 for a degree from a private college or even $100,000 for a degree from a public college.
The reason usually given is that an online degree cannot possibly offer everything that an on-campus degree can. There is some truth to that argument. But I submit that the price paid for the latter in today’s marketplace is too steep. If it’s possible to get the wherewithal for a good job online, then I say it’s a bargain.
Everything in life is a trade-off. Online courses make it harder to network, but the cost savings are substantial. Online learning will require some major changes at colleges and universities. Classrooms will have to be fitted with new technology, and professors will have to redesign their instruction. But in the final analysis, I think the trend will be increasingly online.
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Online will appeal particularly to students from relatively low-income families for whom the much lower cost of online vs. in-person will be a compelling selling point. If so, the expansion of online instruction will ultimately reduce the percentage of lower-income students at four-year in-person colleges, thereby saving those colleges $ via reduced financial aid costs. Might be seeing a kind of return to the college demographics that existed back in the 1920s?
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Labor Lawyer: I’ve long questioned that college is for everyone. That certainly is the case today, with the cost of a degree so high. Online instruction is a bargain compared with on campus instruction. That’s no small thing to consider.
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