Cost-effectiveness of Distance Education

Quite an appropriate discussion topic during this semester, when the cost of two, three-credit hour each classes went from $1608 to over $1800, just like that. Two-hundred bucks, that buys alot of ________________ [ you fill in the blank, (trees, Joe Morley's BBQ, fishing tackle & excursions, 3/5ths of a Remington 887 nitromag, 1/75th of a C.S.M.C. Model 21 20 gauge SxS, 4 cheap seats to Paul McCartney, a college textbook, 3 years of raises for a public school teacher, an iPhone 3G sans service, etc.)]. I hope it is buying the right things in distance education!!! How will we know and how can we evaluate this? Much of our reading this week was about evaluating the cost-effectiveness of distance education against face-to-face instruction.
Although both are education and may have the same desired end results, it is a little like comparing the cost-effectiveness of growing sweet cherries to growing peaches. Yes, both are fruits, both are stone fruits, and both are delicate. Several of the needs of both species are similar -- water, open tree to sunlight, nutrients, well-drained soil, some common pests. But each has different needs and values, too. Cherries have pests that peaches do not, and vice versa, requiring different spray treatments. Birds do great damage to cherries, much less to peaches. Harvest is early for the former, later for the big fuzzies, so varied investment in pesticides. Land space is greatly different, cherries cost way more here. Labor intensive cherries cost more to harvest and process -- herein costing more to purchase -- and must be picked ripe, narrowing the window to pick, pack and ship without spoilage. Many, many variables. You have heard the phrase about 'comparing apples to apples'. That is why this other fruity comparison. Traditional education in a classroom and distance education in a virtual world are not the same things, though they are in the same family.
Cost-effectiveness is about value compared to outcome. Can we graph the value of being able to have some flexibility in when you learn? What about the value of meeting the needs of working professionals in need of updated skills? The value of team interaction in online collaborative groups? The value of instructors using the technology they are teaching, developing a network of replicators? The value of adaptation to the needs of those with health and disability challenges? The value of not having to travel 200+ miles round trip each week (excluding housing and meals and transportation costs)? These are items, whose cost-effectiveness statistics can only be imagined, can only equate individually, can only find true value at the end of several generations. I see great value in the additional $200, but that is not an endorsement to raise it another two 'C' notes in the next two successive semesters.