Abstract:
From 1998 to 2002, the faculty of the Food and Resource Economics Department, College of Agricultural and Life Sciences, University of Florida taught 212 courses on campus and an additional 19 courses via distance technologies. Using data from these experiences, the authors estimate the average additional costs associated with distance education as compared to on-campus courses to be $16,631 percourse and $1,661 per-student-taught. Data limitations are discussed and caveats concerning conclusions about the specific costs of distance education are provided. Within the context of these limitations and caveats, the authors do substantiate several general findings: courses taught via distance are more costly to an academic unit than courses taught on-campus, both in terms of per-course taught and per-student taught; estimates of costs will vary, depending on assumptions made about what costs should be included in the analysis; and, quantifying the costs of distance education ultimately must be evaluated within the broader context of potential benefits and trade-offs across departmental and college program priorities.
Keywords:
cost, distance education
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