Costs and Economics of Student Support
Student support in distance education is an integral part of the program. When budgeting and preparing a cost analysis for a program and/or a course, the type of student support should be planned depending on the type of program or course it is. Just as students learn differently, and teachers teach differently, which makes it important for institutions to provide materials and technologies that meet the needs of not only the students, but the instructors; student support should be selected based on the individual needs of the program. Further, previous experiences should be analyzed to determine whether or not changes should be made based on student and instructor performance. We know that student support consist of not only the tutors and/or the TAs, but also the advisors and the counselors, along with the administrative and technical support.
My suggestion is this: in order to lower the cost of student support, students can be provided with a portal, which allows them to do most of the legwork themselves. For instance, students should be provided with electronic evaluations that allow them to clearly see the courses that they have taken, and the courses that are needed. This will enable the students to easily select and register for their courses themselves thus eliminating the need for a heavy use of the advisors. Further, in a distance education environment, what is the role of the counselor? Can this role not be integrated with that of the advisor? As for administrative and technical support, students can be provided with a technical help site that will allow them to attempt to solve simple technical issues. The only issues that will be escalated to tech support should be severe issues, or those issues that students were unable to solve through the use of the technical help site.
The administrative support would probably need to be full-time support. Another way to cut the cost of student support is to hire adjunct staff for support as opposed to full-time support. That way, the staff can be put to work as needed, as based on the number of students enrolled and/or demand.
