Is Online College Cheaper than Regular College?

It would seem like online college should be less expensive than a regular college, after all they don't have the overhead that a regular college does, unfortunately this is rarely the case. In most cases you will find that online college is more expensive than a regular college, there are a few reasons for this.

The main reason that online colleges are more expensive than regular college is that most of the purely online colleges are run as for profit businesses. They charge the amount that people are willing to pay in order to maximize their profits. Since online colleges generally target working adults who have more money than the average college student they can get away with charging higher tuition.

Oddly even the cost of taking online college courses at a state university is often higher than it is for regular students. In most cases the tuition is the same for both online and offline classes however there is usually an extra fee, most likely called a technology fee that you have to pay in order to take online classes. The amount is not all that great on a per class basis but it does add up.

While online classes are generally more expensive the news is not all bad. For example while most state universities charge an extra fee for online classes most don't charge out of state rates. Therefore you can usually, although not always, take online classes through a state university in another state and pay the same rates as in state students pay which is often much lower than out of state rates.

The other big savings when you take online college courses is that you don't have to actually attend the college. This means that you don't have to worry about things like commuting or moving to be closer to the school. You can continue to live wherever you are and take classes.

Online college also makes it possible for you to work full time while taking classes if you want. While this does not reduce the cost of the classes it does make it much easier to pay for them. That being said working full time will slow down how fast you can actually complete your degree.

In terms of the total cost for a degree online colleges are about the same as regular colleges. It therefore does not make a ton of sense to get one just as a way to save money. We would also recommend that you stick to the low cost state schools rather than the private online colleges, they are simply not worth the amount that they charge.