The Online Education Hydra (Part I)

I recently stumbled upon a Washington Post article entitled “Online Learning Still in High Demand at Community Colleges” where through various interviews and a few studies, the author Sara Weissman details how community colleges across the country are still offering an astounding number of online courses, some institutions with over 50% of their sections offered in fully online or hybrid modalities. Unsurprisingly, the administrators Weissman interviewed justify such outsized online offerings because, according to one vice president, “students have made their preferences clear via their enrollment trends - online course sections at the college have filled much more quickly lately than in-person courses.” Unfortunately, I am not sure these trends, which are usually undergirded by college “data,” reflect what is really happening on the ground, as it is usually difficult to decipher what kind of data these administrators are actually analyzing. Are they looking at fill rates in the same departments, for instance, or over the entire college, comparing departments that are primarily online against those that are primarily in-person. Nevertheless, these “trends” certainly haven’t reflected my experiences with students.

For instance, in a recent course, my students and I were discussing the impact of the pandemic on their educational journeys, and one student expressed his disdain for online courses, which was met with several head nods. I was slightly taken aback. I was being told by researchers and administrators that online courses were what students wanted! When I asked the class who agreed with the student’s sentiments, almost the entire class raised their hands. I then followed up with a show of hands to see how many students were taking online courses, and again, almost everyone raised their hands. In shock, I asked why they were taking online courses if they hated them so much? The answer - they were the only courses available. In other words, over the last three years, we have been offering a vast number of online courses and using their enrollment numbers to justify their existence, and as a result, reluctant students are being forced into modalities they don’t want to enroll in. More on this in a second.

In a separate student interaction - this time in the Writing Center - I was helping a student with a transfer application essay. When I found out he was a freshman, I asked why he was transferring early out-of-state rather than finishing his general education coursework and transferring to an in-state university in another year. Was it sports? A special program? Tired of living at home? Nope - it was that he couldn’t find any coursework in his major on-campus. In other words, his academic department was fully online (this was Fall 2022). He was tired of online courses and was getting outta Dodge. His experience was confirmed when I recently looked at my college’s catalog. While most departments have a fairly logical mix of online and in-person sections, some departments offer just a small handful of fully in-person sections. In fact, a department with one of the most popular majors on campus had just a single fully in-person course. Admittedly, they did have quite a few hybrid courses, which according to one study cited by Weissman, over half of respondents preferred (only 400 participants though, so I’d take that conclusion with a gain of salt). But when we get complacent and blinded by cost savings (administrators) and by working from home (faculty), we fail to see that hybrid courses can be just as problematic for our students.

I saw this first-hand while helping an international student register for courses. She had met with a counselor, who had helped her choose her classes, and now she just needed help navigating the course schedule and registration process. I could tell immediately why. As an international student, she is required to take 12 units per semester, 9 of which must be fully in-person. We were able to find her some important in-person courses, but when we got to the social sciences -  psychology and sociology, in particular - we couldn’t find any. This is because the psychology department was offering only a single, just one (1), fully in-person course (and it was one she didn’t need to take), and the sociology department was offering zero (0). No wonder my students above were forced into online courses they didn’t want to take! So two courses she needed to graduate - Introduction to Sociology and General Psychology - were both hybrid or fully online, so she had to choose one or the other. She enrolled in sociology and, of course, she’ll take the psychology course next semester, but what if all the sections are hybrid or online again? And what if another required course is also hybrid or fully online? She can’t keep kicking the can down the road - it’s expensive paying nonresident fees! Moreover, this is an issue for other student groups that must take a certain number of in-person courses, like veterans. Over-relying on hybrid and fully online courses is eventually going to prevent some students from pursuing their academic goals. To revisit the student who left because he wanted to take in-person courses, a cursory look at my college’s catalog reveals that at least six (6) major departments on campus have between 0 and 2 in-person courses. Between these six departments, only 2% of their sections are fully in-person (I have a feeling more than 2% of students want in-person courses). I don’t think my college is alone in this.

The point I am trying to make is this: we need to look at our enrollment trends more critically. It is lazy to argue that because online courses are filling up that they are “what the students want.” This is absurd. Online education is becoming a self-fulfilling prophecy. We started the pandemic with 100% online courses, and even as we started bringing programs back to campus in 2021, we over-relied on online courses because, to be honest, 2021 was still kind of scary. It was still a little risky sitting in a classroom with others. But now in Fall 2023, we are acting like the data for the last three years is reflective of the current moment, and as I demonstrated above, we are scheduling our way into justifying online education. Online education is becoming a hydra of sorts - more and more virtual heads keep popping out. If the international student mentioned above wasn’t international, she probably would have reluctantly enrolled in both the hybrid sociology and psychology courses. But suddenly, she becomes a statistic wherein she “wants” to be online because 40% of her schedule is online. In reality, she was forced into this situation, just like the students in my class. And as I will discuss in my next post, the “customer” isn’t always right. Yes, there are a lot of students who actually do want to take online classes, and yes, there are a lot of students who couldn’t go to college if it wasn’t for those online classes. But are online classes appropriate for all our students? Probably not. Are online classes really as good as in-person courses? I don’t think so. And are there negative social, emotional, and physical consequences for our students who take online courses? Probably. But that’ll be the topic of my next post. See you then and thanks for reading!