Students pay for structure, tracking, human involvement, verified testing,
feedback, and documentation -- not content.
In the current day and age -- content is functionally free. What we pay for is
description, tracking, and documentation. For example the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT) offers its courses for free through its
OpenCourseWare (OCW) initiative. OCW is a free and open educational resource
that provides access to MIT course materials to anyone in the world with an
internet connection. OCW includes materials from over 2,500 MIT courses,
including lecture notes, problem sets, exams, and video lectures. How does MIT
make money? It charges for instructor involvement in a greater level of testing
and documentation that students can use to prove they have actually learned
something. (Taking a self-study class may or may not result in having learned
something. Content is free -- instructor involvement costs money.)
Sometimes students participate in a low-cost version ($69) of the ASL University
curriculum known as "ASL.tc." The ASL.tc program was designed to be a
self-study, low-cost, low-documentation program that involves no engagement in
proctored testing and no submission of instructor-graded video projects.
A next-level higher amount of description, documentation, and instructor
invovlement would be a program such as the $483 per course / $1,932.00 for 4
levels ASLU program described here: http://www.lifeprint.com/asl101/pages-layout/catalog.htm
Even more highly documented courses such as "accredited" versions of this
curriculum (for example, as offered via Educere: https://www.educere.net/myCourseDetail.asp?educereID=DCFSP2777&pageID=2596.275)
cost $599.00 per course and/or $2,396 for ASL 1 - 4. (Note: I do not run Educere
nor am I involved in their pricing structure. I just helped them develop
curriculum for their courses and am providing them as a third-party example.)
College credit programs (accredited) tend to cost even more. For example, Sac
State's College of Continuing Education charges around $299 per unit (credit
hour) and thus a four-unit ASL 1 course will cost $1,196.00 per course and
$4,784 for 4 levels of ASL (and that is not including student fees).
In other words, the price goes up as (human) instructor involvement and the
documentation level goes up.
________________________
William G. Vicars, Ed.D.
ASL University (Lifeprint.com)
BillVicars@aol.com
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