A recent article from the student NMSU newspaper reports that NMSU admin is lowering a tuition cost for online learning. Then we learn that this represents only a lowering in the “additional fee per credit hour” that NMSU currently charges for online courses.
IOW, NMSU has been charging more for online courses than for in person courses, and now that so many students more or less have to take courses online, NMSU is lowering the ADDITIONAL fee for online learning from an added $35/ credit hour, to the new only $25 added per credit hour, on top of the standard credit hour charge that NMSU students pay.
A spokesman claims that it’s more expensive to offer coursework online than in person because of media equipment, and paying for Zoom.
One would like to see an apples to apples accounting for the NMSU costs per credit hour of classroom instruction compared to online instruction. Item by item, cost by cost. Conventional wisdom is that providing digital content is less expensive, not more expensive, than in-person content. Perhaps not at NMSU for some reason, or perhaps the reason for the add-on cost of online credit hours has some other explanation.
NMSU reduces online per credit fee, hybrid and synchronous classes now included - NMSU Round Up