In the wake of COVID-19, many colleges and universities have sent their students home and fully transitioned to an online format. At the very least, others have expanded their online curriculum. Many high school students have grown accustomed to taking some or even all of their courses online, even as every community has a local high school. However, colleges and universities have traditionally been “destinations” despite having dabbled in online classes for years. So, in a sense, this expansion of online classes presents a new outlook on college.
“Going away to college,” has been a right of passage for many young people for generations, and so the living expenses associated with that setting up of a new life in a new place has usually been a significant part of the “cost of college”, much of which has been made. In fact, at many colleges around the country the room and board portion of a college’s cost of attendance far outpaces the tuition.
So, if everything is online now anyway, why are we continuing to pay that? I know, in a lot of situations it’s just time for the little bird to leave the nest. The student is ready to get out of the house and the parent is ready for them to move on also. That’s a biological normalcy and very understandable. However, in some households, it sure makes a lot of financial sense for the student to stay at home and go to college from their bedroom. They might still be able to go to the college of their dreams and save all that money. They can have their cake and eat it too.
This doesn’t have to be all or nothing either. In the first two years of college, a lot of the courses a student will take are general education courses. These are often the classes that take place in humongous lecture halls where there is limited interaction with professors anyway. General education courses tend to be less technical meaning there might be less hands-on classroom activities that a student really needs to be in an in-person format for. Therefore, perhaps a student can plan to spend their first two years of college at home taking online classes, then move to campus for their junior and senior year when the level of importance of more tangible in-class experiences will probably increase. In this way, students can receive the best of both worlds and make a drastic cut to the room and board portion of their entire college tab.
Indeed, there are some programs that will allow a student to earn a degree without ever leaving home. As college expenses continue to spiral upwards and the proliferation of the online curriculums presented by colleges increases, especially as fueled by the necessary changes colleges have implemented due to COVID-19, this is something families ought to at least consider as they make their college plans. I agree there are many situations where moving a young person out of a house is the right move for a family, but money is always a consideration when it comes to college so this is at least worth a thought.
