Online courses, instructional quality, and economics: a conceptual  (Page 7/8)

Although a common conception is that online education is breaking geographic barriers, this assumption has only limited validity. In a recent survey (Guess, 2007), two-thirds of prospective online students were seeking courses from institutions within their home state. As a result, most institutions will probably be serving a primarily local population through online courses. This situation means that a very large percentage of the students taking online classes are already taking on-campus courses at the same institution or would have been enrolled on campus if the online course were not available. Thus, failure to retain online students will have the same economic implications as failing to retain students in face-to-face classes.

Consideration of student retention raises the issue of providing student services to online students. Relevant services include, but are not limited to, admissions, orientation, advising, career and personal counseling, and tutorial services (Schwitzer, Ancis,&Brown, 2001). This issue is of particular concern when an institution moves from simply providing online courses to offering entire academic programs online. Providing appropriate student services to online students is one of the most critical issues currently confronting student affairs professionals (Sandeen&Barr, 2006). An important aspect of providing such services is facilitating the holistic development of college students that distinguishes the mission of an institution of higher education from that of a technical school (Brown, 1972). Both retention efforts and student development initiatives are currently centered on first year experience programs such as freshman interest groups and learning communities (Upcraft, Gardner, Barefoot,&Associates, 2005). Much of the positive effect of these programs comes from creating a sense of community. Although a sense of community can be developed online, doing so is labor intensive and requires skills that faculty often do not possess (Palloff&Pratt, 2007). For example, Palloff and Pratt estimate that teaching online in a way that develops community requires three times as much instructor time as does teaching face-to-face.

Specifics will vary across institutions but the concept should now be clear. Administrators must consider the possible impact of foregone income due to loss of currently enrolled students. The currently enrolled student population remains the best, and cheapest, source of future students. Retention costs less than recruitment. Raisman (2007) did not provide an average cost for a successful retention program but mentioned that the cost can be as low as $30 per student retained, in comparison to the $5460 to recruit a new student. Thus, he suggested that institutions of higher education focus on Full-time Graduate Equivalent (FGE) rather than FTE. An FGE is simply the ratio of how many FTE students an institution needs to enroll to get one graduate. The lower the FGE, the better off an institution is economically. Mission driven, as opposed to enrollment driven, institutions tend to be more successful because policies and programs are focused on providing a challenging environment with support for academic success, and on making students feel part of something special (Kuh, et al., 2005). In the long run these policies and programs generate more revenue because the institution gains a higher ROI than they would obtain from online information dumps.