A Template For Analyzing Costs Associated With Educational Delivery Modes

Abstract

The purpose of this research was to develop, test, and apply a framework for determining cost of alternative educational course delivery modes. This study reviews and analyzes the costs associated with traditional education and compares it to those costs associated with video conference and online distance education at a single institution. The intended result of this study was to assist leaders in higher education in gaining a better understanding of the costs associated with three different delivery modes for undergraduate courses. Leaders should request and apply cost (and effectiveness) information when making decisions about the course delivery modes best suited to serve their academic communities. Whether the emergence of distance education spells the end of traditional campuses, as some maintain, or whether learning by distance represents, instead, a particularly powerful addition to a growing array of delivery options for higher education, the fact remains that distance education is already having a very real impact on higher education. Distance education through technology has created alternative models of teaching and learning, new job descriptions for faculty, and new types of providers of higher education. But many questions remain about the costs (and the effectiveness) of these delivery methods.