In today’s Martin Center article, Megan Zogby, a sophomore at North Carolina State University (and a Martin Center intern), writes about her experience with the shift to all online courses due to the COVID-19 crisis.

For one thing, online courses have a lower price tag, but the university has not offered students any money back. Zogby writes:

NC State prices in-person classes differently from online classes. A 9-11 credit hour in-person semester is $3,412, while 9 credit hours online is $2,131 — a $1,281 difference. Many students, who haven’t taken online classes before, might not even be aware of the price difference. Yet NC State has said nothing about a partial tuition refund, even though an in-person class offers more opportunity for student engagement than an online class.

What about educational quality? She isn’t impressed with the online versions of the courses she was taking:

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So far with online classes, the workload seems more like busywork. My assignments have stressed my learning process and shifted my focus from absorbing information to finishing and submitting the many online assignments. Pre-recorded lectures are posted on teachers’ websites and those are, in my opinion, the hardest to learn from. At least with live Zoom lectures, students can interact with professors. A pre-recorded forty-minute lecture, however, has no breaks for questions. It’s also harder to focus and process the information.

Doing everything online was probably a necessary measure, but for at least one student, it means losing several months of educational value.