It’s still the early days of online schooling, and the research is mixed about whether it will usher in a new era of affordable education, as enthusiasts hope.
While it’s returned questionable results in some settings, low cost is driving demand — and it has proved effective in at least one sector: older, motivated students pursuing a technical advanced degree.
A new paper, "Can Online Delivery Increase Access to Education?" by researchers at Harvard and Georgia Tech takes a look at Tech's online master's degree in computer science. It reports earlier findings that online students "slightly outperformed" in-person students on final exams and reaches its own conclusion that there is large demand for such flexible online programs, especially among mid-career professionals juggling work and family life.
“Online education can provide mid-career training without forcing individuals to quit their jobs or move to locations with appropriate educational institutions,” the researchers wrote. They also found that online students, who are older on average, were sticking with the program instead of dropping out. “This model of online education thus has the potential to substantially increase the national stock of computer science human capital.”
Questions remain about online education in other settings, particularly at the K-12 level. Georgia's largest online K-12 schools are producing sub par results as are online credit recovery programs.
And the researchers on this latest paper question whether the outcomes with Tech’s computer science program are attainable for other types of courses or groups of students at the college level. Also, since the undergraduate colleges attended by the online students suggest they were “somewhat weaker academically” than in-person students, the researchers question whether their grad degree will be valued as much in the job market.
But one inescapable fact remains: online education costs a fraction of the in-person experience — around $7,000 for the online Tech program versus $45,000 for the full, in-person experience. “Whether such low-cost, high-quality models can make inroads in undergraduate or secondary education remains to be seen,” the report says.
Recent reports suggest that online education may not be the best match for younger students, especially those who are behind academically, but it seems to work, at least in this case, for older, motivated students pursuing a specific type of advanced degree.
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