Counting the Costs of Courses - Page 2 of 2 |
Compare him with your local train company or airline. All their costs – trains, tracks, infrastructure – have to be met in advance. So they can, and often do, charge what they like per seat. Any income may be better than none; it’s the total income that counts, not the income per seat.
Distance Learning courses are more like seats than apples. Once the course has been written, and the support systems put in place, the extra cost per new learner is small. And unlike the airline, the number of seats is not limited; a distance learning course can be run for one thousand learners as easily as for one.
The price of a course is fixed by the market, by competitors’ prices, and by a provider’s guess on likely sales and income. A cheap course may be shoddy, or it may be one the provider thinks will sell well. A course may be expensive because it is very good, or because it will sell only a few copies.
Buyer expectations are also important. When ILAs were introduced, some providers adjusted their prices down to £175, (£25 plus the grant). And people grumbled. But why? On a train you might have paid £10, whilst the next man paid £100. One rule for seats, another for courses?
Buyer beware
And people buy courses in curious ways. They would look carefully at a used car, shop around, get independent advice; know that there are bargains, and rascals, and be watchful for both.
So why not approach a course in the same way? Because education, they assume, is not a commercial activity. Because you can trust educators, can’t you? They do it for love, not money.
There are other consequences. You have some say in what the hairdresser does. But they often lack the confidence to take the same kind of control in education.
ILAs are important because they empower individuals. But individuals also need guidance, and a modicum of protection. Any new scheme must do both. We await developments.
David Morley
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