ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, August 6, 1996 TAG: 9608060078
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: C-1 EDITION: METRO
COLUMN: What's On Your Mind?
SOURCE: RAY REED
Q: The newspaper reported July 25 that Virginia Tech's graduate engineering distance learning program now spends $1.2 million a year to broadcast 24 courses via satellite.
How many students were enrolled in those 24 courses?
How many completed the courses? How many credit hours were generated? How does the per-student cost compare with the same course on the Virginia Tech (or other) campus?
We need information on comparative costs in analyzing the worth of distance learning programs.
L.S., Salem
A: Virginia Tech provided the following figures:
For the past five years, Tech's enrollment in the graduate engineering program via satellite averaged 600 students per semester.
Another 137 students took a master of business administration program that figures into the costs, though it wasn't mentioned in that news story.
If each student took two three-hour courses per semester, a Tech spokesman said, the credit hours would total 8,022.
Because Tech spent $1.2 million to beam the courses up, that breaks down to $150 per credit hour.
The costs paid by the students should have totaled about $2 million, based on Tech's charge of $771 for a three-hour graduate course at off-campus learning sites.
On-campus students pay $687 in tuition for a three-hour graduate course, $84 less than the distance learning students.
These figures are for Virginia residents. Out-of-state students pay more.
You ask how many students enrolled and how many completed the courses; Tech said the only figure readily available was the census taken one month after each semester started.
There are two presumptions here: that all who were counted stayed to earn the credits, and that each student was taking two courses.
Let's add some background on this program.
The engineering courses are part of the Commonwealth Graduate Engineering Program, and three other schools participate: the University of Virginia, Old Dominion University and Virginia Commonwealth University.
Each university offers a degree from the program, and total enrollment, including Tech's 600 students, is upward of 1,000.
The distance learning program started in 1982, and its purpose is economic development. Companies that come to Virginia or stay here can keep their employees competitive.
To this end, some of the classrooms receiving the satellite transmissions are located at General Electric in Salem, the Norfolk Naval Shipyard and NASA at Wallops Island, as well as other corporate sites.
Tech's costs for paying the professors and providing classrooms aren't figured into the distance learning program.
The televised classes are being taught on campus anyway before a live audience of 20-25 students.
Distance learning's camera work and satellite time rental are added costs. They extend a single class to perhaps 75 more students, bringing an economy-of-scale factor into the picture.
Have a question about something that might affect other people, too? Something you've come across and wondered about? Call us at 981-3118. Or, e-mail RayR@Roanoke.Infi.Net. Maybe we can find the answer.
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