Print |
E-mail to a friend
NEWS
Rising gas prices fueling boom in enrollment of online classes
HUNTINGTON -- Enrollment in online courses offered by Marshall University and other colleges across the country is increasing, and officials believe rising gasoline prices are fueling part of the growth.
Taking classes via computer from home allows students who live away from campus to avoid making costly trips to and from school, they said.
This summer, Marshall experienced a 9 percent increase from a year ago in the number of students signing up for an online course for the first time -- or about 480 enrollments, according to Jan Fox, the university's chief information officer. Growth, she said, has been continual since the university began offering online courses in 1997. Fox said there were 11,913 online course enrollments in the 2007-2008 school-year.
The Southern Regional Education Board, which represents 300 colleges and universities in West Virginia and 15 other southern states, said colleges across the country are experiencing a 10 percent growth in online course registration, according to Bruce Chaloux, the group's director of student access programs and services
Chaloux said more than 3.5 million people signed up for online courses during the 2006-2007 school year. Many of those students have begun taking a mix of online and on-campus courses at the same time. Both Fox and Chaloux suspected the blending to be, in part, due to higher fuel costs. Gasoline has remained around $4 a gallon all summer.
"Recently there's been a lot of discussion about what the economic downturn and high fuel costs mean for students that commute," Chaloux said. "In the past, people would commute 30 or 40 miles to take a few classes, but it's our suspicion that they're taking more online classes to opt out of driving. Online classes are becoming the ones that fill up first."
Fox said, "If you're driving to a class on Monday, Wednesday and Friday for 15 weeks, it's not financially beneficial to be driving 50 miles a day. To even out the cost of gas, a lot of students will take campus courses and a few online courses."
Marshall offers almost 200 courses online, ranging from a seminar on crime prevention to a class focusing on the fundamentals of speech communication. Fox said Marshall also offers a number of degrees, including three undergraduate, one graduate, one certificate and two minors.
MORE INFORMATION
For more information on Marshall University's online course selection, go online at www.marshall.edu/muonline/.
