Elements of Quality Online Education cation

The Business of Online Education: Are We Cost Competitive?UT Permian Basin UTPB $31.1 3,044 Master’s IUT San Antonio UTSA $243.6 24,665 Master’s IUT Tyler UTT $46.5 4,783 Master’s IUT TeleCampus UTTC $2.8 1,200 2 N/A1 Brownsville’s enrollment is combined with South Texas Community College2 The TeleCampus counts its enrollment as seats in classes. It is a tally of the number of students takingcourses offered from TeleCampus courseware and supported by TeleCampus student services. For the FY2003 year, course enrollment was 8,345, which represented a headcount of 6,371. For this chart, TeleCampusenrollments for FY03 have been converted to an estimated FTE numberB. Investigating On-Campus Cost StructuresThe study began with an examination of the published budgets of the nine academic institutions withinthe UT System, as well as the budget for the UT TeleCampus as base data. The budgets of the systeminstitutions use common categories and nearly-common allocation methodologies. This allowed us toidentify specific and pertinent cost categories that can be attributed to educational delivery. The line itemsfrom those budgets that were included fully were:• Academic Support Services, which includes line items for non-instructional staff and materials.• Student Support Services, primarily a salary and wage category.• Institutional Support Services, again, primarily a salary and wage category.• Operations and Maintenance of Plant—in addition to staffing, this item includes a significantmaterials cost.In addition, a portion of the depreciation and amortization cost category was included in the total costderivation. Deriving the appropriate portion of the depreciation and amortization was an interestingquestion and one that was decided only after much discussion with administrative, accounting, andfinance staff. The final algorithm captures the ratio of the educational and general expenditures (those thatare directly attributable to instruction) to the total university expenditures. For those with the financemindset, the formula used, quite simply is:Total Operating Expense, Educational & GeneralTotal Operating Expense, University – Investment in PlantThis ratio, ranging from 0.5 to 0.7, is then applied to the depreciation and amortization line item andincluded in the campus’ total cost of delivering instruction. Identified costs were then distributed acrosseach campus’ reported number of semester credit hours for the year, resulting in a “cost per SCH.” Thisbecame the unit of comparison for the study.C. Investigating Online Cost StructuresBecause the TeleCampus and the campuses work together to bring quality online courses to life whilealso supporting the student, some costs are shared (for example, library) while some are borne by eitherthe TeleCampus (for example, delivery platform) or the institution (for example, instructional costs). Thismakes it difficult to perform a straight item-by-item comparison.177