You Can Put College Courses Online, but You Can’t Get an Education There

[ss20ts]

One huge thing this writer completely missed is that many - if not most - instructors at butts in the seats programs are not great at their jobs. Many don't actually teach. I say this as someone who has taking in person courses at 7 different colleges and universities. There's nothing like paying hundreds or thousands of dollars for a class where the professor literally spends 50 minutes reading the textbook to you. Or the professor doesn't show up. Or tells you to spend the class working......on what? Whatever you want. Many just lecture to students. They don't engage. This isn't to say that all instructors suck. There are definitely good ones. But it seems like there are far more poor and bad instructors than good and great ones.

When the pandemic hit in March 2020 the uber expensive private liberal arts college down the road from me ($60K a year plus room & board) sent the kids home from Spring Break. They had NO idea what they were going to do. They offered 0 - yes ZERO - courses online. The kids had an additional 2 weeks off while they school rushed to build some sort of online learning platform. How in the world do you not offer online courses in 2020? Now they are raking in thousands and thousands from their online courses. They see how much money they missed out on over the years.

Is online learning for everyone? Nope. Is college for everyone? Nope. Is every school the right fit for every student? Nope. To be a successful online student you have to want to do it. You have to make the time in your schedule. You know you're doing it on your own as most online classes are asynchronous. Maybe this will help weed out those who should and shouldn't be in college at that moment. Just because one is 18 doesn't mean that is the right time in their life to be earning a degree.