Distance education has been around for hundreds of years, but due to the COVID-19 pandemic, it has caused distance learning to be utilized more than ever before. Almost every student and teacher has or is attendending/teaching school with an electrical device from home. As students are stripped away from all physical aspects of school, they are still expected to perform and pay the same amount of money as if they were attending school physically, but how effective is distance learning compared to in person learning?
Students are having to give up all forms of in-person education as they look at a computer screen all day just to attend class. Many College tuition’s are still being kept the same or even increased even though students are losing access to a great deal of the resources they are paying, therefore, they are not able to access them from home. Tuition rates for students should be expected to decrease. Not only is the environment and learning style completely different than attending classes in person as your stripped away from attending classrooms, being surrounded by peers, and having a professor , but students are also under incredible financial stress as they are expected to pay tuition as if they were attending in-person classes.
Every aspect of a student’s life is currently being affected by the current pandemic, COVID-19, ranging from not being able to go out with friends to taking classes from home. It is a very hard time as many students are losing their jobs as the pandemic has caused many if not all businesses to shut down temporarily only now opening back up with very few hours and limited spots for staff members. In the article, “BEG:Colleges should lower tuition if classes remain online” written by Aminah Beg who is the assistant opinion editor for the Marquette Wire, majoring in Public Relations in Naperville, Illinois, addresses why colleges should lower their tuition if classes remain online,which they currently are.
Beg claims that colleges should lower their tuition as students are left in a “particularly tumultuous situation” as they are left without jobs because of COVID-19, either because their “occupations are deemed unessential” or “cannot continue on-campus employment” as almost all college campuses are shut down or have a very limited staff requirement. In addition, she states that a “single credit at marquette during a regular fall or spring semester is estimated to cost roughly around $1,075 while online courses are offered at a reduced rate of $750 per credit hour.” That is a $325 difference for only one credit that students are still being charged, for many this might not seem like a great deal but many colleges are not reducing their college tuition even by a penny.
A typical semester is usually “15 to 21 credits”, that would mean that students, at Marquette University, are paying an unnecessary $4,875-$6,825 per semester or a tremendous $9,750-$13,650 extra per year. Beg also mentions that students are enrolling into college expecting to receive the “full college experience” including a campus and some sort of physical presence in the college itself, as that is what they are paying for, but instead students are being “forced to pay the same amount” of money when “this quarantine period restricts the fulfillment of those expectations”. Beg’s college also “charges its students $348” for the facilities they are provided on campus including a “Medical Clinic and Counseling Center”. These costs “should not be required for students when they cannot physically use them”. The students are paying for facilities and resources which they are not receiving at all, this is excluding other parts of the campus like the libraries and computer labs.
Some of these resources like the “Counseling Center” and School Libraries can be accessed online but they do not “guarantee the student the same experience” as if they were physically in a library or in a counseling office. This has brought the unnecessary charges forced upon students up to $10,098-$13,998 per year just for some parts of the campus. These numbers won’t be the same for every college, as colleges have different tuitions but they give a rough estimate as to just how much extra money students are paying for their online courses that in reality, they should not be paying.
Students are being charged the same amount of money as if they were attending college in-person utilizing all the resources and facilities provided by the college, but they are not, they are also not receiving the same education that they would be receiving if they were attending college in person. In the article “Why distance learning can’t compare to in-person education” posted by Penelope King who after three years of working as a features writer, is now a senior and a features editor, addresses why distance learning is nowhere near as effective and enjoyable compared to in-person learning.
King claims that distance learning is not an “adequate substitute for in person learning” as there are many “attributes of in-person learning that are vital for an effective education” that distance learning “simply cannot accommodate” because of all the limitations that come with it. One of the main limitations being the most obvious, “the environment”, is what drastically separates distance learning from in-person learning. This is so because in the article King states that “without peer collaboration and student engagement” students cannot be expected and won’t be able to to learn at “the same rate that they would in a school environment.” This is adding onto Beg’s claims, from the previous source, as “students are not receiving the same experience”, therefore should not be expected to learn the same and even pay the same amount of money as if they were learning in-person.
King also states that “procrastination is already one major vice students struggle with”, now at home there are excessive amounts of “distractions that students must now face along with an urge to procrastinate”. Between 80 to 90 percent of college students procrastinate while attending college in person, so students attending college from home are now most likely to procrastinate and eventually this becomes monotonous. Procrastination on top of inadequate learning environments makes it extremely difficult for students to be able to “properly absorb the necessary information for their classes”, this is excluding if the teachers know how to properly teach a class remotely.
Many teachers have not been trained for the transition of in-person schooling to online schooling, they should not be at fault as they were unaware of the pandemic’s impact, but now students have some teachers who have no clue on how to properly teach an online class. Properly teaching an online class as in being able to clearly and effectively teach the class context, some teachers might fail at this as they might now know how to teach a class through an electrical device which hinders the students’ capabilities to learn the material needed for the course. In the report “An Exploratory Study of the Obstacles for Achieving Quality in Distance Learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic” written by Zohra Lassoued, Mohammed Alhendawi, and Raed Bashitialshaaer, academic scholars, have addressed the “obstacles to achieving quality in learning during the Coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic”.
In this study the three authors break down the effectiveness of distance learning based on surveys and studies conducted. In the report they state that “71% of teachers attributed the obstacles to achieving quality in distance learning during the COVID-19 pandemic to the lack of prior training in the use of technology, and 66% to the security and confidentiality of data and information.” This is adding onto what King stated in the previous source as, 71% of teachers lack the skills needed to properly teach students remotely as they have very little to no knowledge on how to properly use an electronic device to teach students. If the teachers cannot use their devices effectively, students’ learning will be affected negatively as the teacher is incapable of properly and effectively teaching the students the information needed to pass the course.
Zohra Lassoued, Mohammed Alhendawi and Raed Bashitialshaaer continue to talk about “home environment is not suitable for distance learning”, once again similar to what King wrote, attending classes from home is nowhere near as effective as attending classes in a college campus. At home students are challenged with distractions like “chaos of children, the narrowness of the house, the presence of a significant number of learners in the same family with only one computer.” and all these obstacles “prevent the achievement of quality learning from a distance.” This can also be seen in the chart “Amid Pandemic, Families Cope with New Demands of Online Learning” created by Tribune Content Agency Graphics. In the chart it shows the challenges that students are facing in distance learning. It shows that 44% of students major issue being their attention span and motivation, while 34% of the students just find it a minor issue and the rest not a issue at all. Furthermore 78% of students are suffering from motivational loss which leads to decrease performance in classrooms and drops in grades.
In conclusion, students who are currently distance learning are being forced to pay full college tuition even though they are not receiving the experience that they are paying for. Students are unable to use the resources and facilities on campus as they are stuck learning from home due to COVID-19, yet still have to pay for them. Students are also unable to learn as well as they would if they were attending college in person as they are much more vulnerable to procrastinating and being distracted by events occurring in their homes, which may be unavoidable. If the student does pay attention and fully commit to the course, they also have to go through attending a class where the professor might have no idea on how to properly use an electronic device, this could lead to missing assignments as the professor may forget to email some students what assignments were due or just couldn’t find the email that the student might have sent them. These are several reasons of many as to why colleges should be lowering their tuition costs for students.
Works Cited:
Beg, Aminah. “BEG: Colleges Should Lower Tuition If Classes Remain Online.” Marquettewire, 22 Apr. 2020, marquettewire.org/4032092/featured/beg-colleges-should-lower-tuition-if-classes-remain-online/.
Lassoued, Zohra, et al. “An Exploratory Study of the Obstacles for Achieving Quality in Distance Learning during the COVID-19 Pandemic.” Education Sciences, vol. 10, no. 9, 2020, p. 1T+. Gale Academic OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/A640363645/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=AONE&xid=40ecdbed. Accessed 10 Nov. 2020.
“Amid Pandemic, Families Cope with New Demands of Online Learning.” Tribune Content Agency Graphics, 2020. Gale Academic OneFile, https://link.gale.com/apps/doc/SJTLHE809420439/AONE?u=cuny_ccny&sid=AONE&xid=c1f8705b. Accessed 16 Nov. 2020.
King, Penelope. “Why Distance Learning Can’t Compare to in-Person Education.” Aragonoutlook, 5 June 2020, aragonoutlook.org/2020/06/why-distance-learning-cant-compare-to-an-in-person-education/.
