Really Low-Cost Computers Are Here

The notion that improvements in technology normally lead to lower costs for consumers is taken to an extreme with some of the new devices hitting the market, such as the CHIP computer.

The CHIP website calls the device the world’s first $9 computer. It’s about the size of a credit card and has WiFi and Bluetooth capabilities built in, a 1GHz processor, four gigabytes of storage, and 512 MB of RAM. Keyboard, screen, and mouse are not part of the package, but CHIP can connect to any Bluetooth device and has a USB port to plug into older accessories.

Next Thing Co. created CHIP through a Kickstarter campaign that got the backing of nearly 40,000 people and raised $2 million, according to a report by National Public Radio. A teacher from the Nelson County Area Technology Center, Bardstown, KY, contributed $150 to the campaign and was selected to test the device in the classroom. Students at the school have used CHIP to rewire Star Wars toys with LED lights.

“This is one way to do it, by intriguing their interest and seeing what’s on the cutting edge of technology,’” said Jeremy Booher, principal of the school. “If we were still using typewriters and using Microsoft DOS, then obviously people come in and fall asleep.”

The CHIP is just one of a number of low-cost basic computers now on the market or coming soon. They have been made possible because the price of microprocessors and computer components has fallen so dramatically.

College Expenses Yield Big Dividends

The cost of attending a college or university has been heavily criticized, with extra digs at the retail prices of textbooks and other course materials. In the view of one economist, though, that expense represents an investment that will pay off handsomely in the end.

David Howden, professor of economics at St. Louis University at its Madrid campus, and academic vice president of the Ludwig von Mises Institute of Canada, an economics education organization, sifted through data from the U.S. Federal Reserve related to student-loan debt and adult employment.

Some 70% of college students graduate with loans, to the tune of $29,400 on average, Howden noted in an article for the Mises Institute. Most students also “lose” the job earnings they would have received during the years they were in school. The total cost, he said, is around $300,000.

“But the decision to not pursue a college degree and enter the workforce directly also comes with a cost,” he said. “It seems like a good deal at first, but for most it means fewer opportunities, less promotions down the line, limited access to higher-paying jobs, and, ultimately, lower lifetime earnings.”

How much lower? Howden calculated that today’s college graduates will bring home some $800,000 more by retirement than those who didn’t pursue higher education. That’s an average figure.

To Howden, that’s a pretty good return on investment. “It may seem onerous to pay back student loans, but the alternative is monetarily far worse,” he said.

ROI of Higher Education

One question college students and their parents often ask is whether the education received is worth the cost. The website eCollegeFinder has compiled data from the National Center for Education Statistics into a graphic that shows the overall graduation rate by state.

What remains to be seen is if a list of the schools with the highest graduation rates around the country really helps students get a better return on their education investment or not.

Ashland U. Cuts Tuition Costs by $10K

While others talk about the affordability of a college education, Ashland University, Ashland, OH, is doing something about it.

Annual full-time tuition at the school, which has an enrollment of 2,200 students, will drop $10,000 to $18,908. Grant and scholarship aid will also be reduced, but the new lower tuition will still be around $6,000 less than a student at The Ohio State University will pay.

“Over the past decade, everyone in higher education has danced around the subject of the rising cost of college,” said AU President Fred Finks in a press release. “Yet few have been willing to tackle the issue and the complications involved.”

When Concordia University, St. Paul, MN, reduced its undergraduate tuition by $10,000 it saw a 30% increase in applications, while its enrollment went from 183 freshmen and 91 transfer students in the fall of 2012 to 257 freshmen and 167 transfers this fall.

“Really what is going on here is we are cutting back on the discount rate and creating a transparency in our pricing,” said Concordia spokesman Jason DeBoer-Moran.

At the same time Ashland is making news for cutting fees, the Star-Ledger reports that New Jersey students should brace for a $200,000 bachelor’s degree as the undergraduate fees at some state colleges will top $40,000 this year.

Surprise! Students Think Textbooks Are Too Expensive

Students and faculty say traditional textbooks are too costly and they want an alternative, but also question whether the e-textbooks will ever offer significant savings, according to a new report from the Educause Center for Analysis and Research.

Understanding What Higher Education Needs from E-Textbooks: An Educause/Internet2 Pilot is the result of an e-text study conducted in the fall of 2012 at 23 colleges and universities. McGraw-Hill Education and e-textbook provider Courseload delivered e-texts to 5,000 students and faculty in nearly 400 undergraduate and graduate courses.

The study found that faculty and students want a choice of platforms for reading e-texts, the ability to access content offline, the freedom to opt out of e-textbooks, and still be able to choose paper textbooks. Respondents also said they need technical support to make use of new formats and that consumer experiences with electronic content drive their expectations of e-textbooks.

“This study demonstrates that institutions and the marketplace must first remove barriers that exist even in today’s paper textbook market, most notably cost,” said Susan Grajek, vice president for data, research, and analytics for Educause. “Challenges innate to electronic content must also be addressed, including availability of materials where and when students need them, compatibility with the devices students own and prefer to use, and the kind of functionality that comes from good interface design. The solutions will come from many sources, but through this study students and faculty have clarified their needs.”

'Textbook-Free' Degree Being Offered

Tidewater Community College (TCC), with branches in Chesapeake, Norfolk, Portsmouth, and Virginia Beach, VA, is planning to offer an associate of science degree program in business administration that won’t require the purchase of any textbooks. The school says it’s the first program of its kind and could reduce the cost of the degree by a third.

“I think we have a responsibility as a college to do what we can to help control the costs of textbooks, because we know there are students who can’t afford them,” Daniel T. DeMarte, TCC vice president for academic affairs and chief academic officer told eCampus News. “We know there are students who are not successful because they can’t afford them.”

The fall pilot will use open educational resources (OER) instead of traditional textbooks, a move the college estimates will save students who complete the degree about $2,000. Additional academic advising will also be made available to students in the OER courses.

“When a student hears it’s a textbook-free course, that doesn’t mean they don’t have to read,” said Kimberly Bovee, associate vice president for strategic learning initiatives at TCC. “That doesn’t mean they don’t have to engage in the course material and maybe read even more than they’re used to.”

Virginia State University, Petersburg, already uses open digital textbooks in all of the core courses in its business program, while the state community college system is trying to expand the OER courses offered through grants to instructors who develop material for high-enrollment classes that can be shared across the system.

“I think it’s one of the biggest rip-offs in this business,” Glenn DuBois, chancellor of the Virginia community college system, said of the cost of textbooks. “I say that not as a chancellor: I say it as a father who just had to give his daughter 600 bucks to buy this semester’s textbooks at a public university.”

In Spring, Students' Fancy Turns to E-Texts

Come late spring, an interesting thing happens on college and university campuses, and it’s not related to romance or spring-break shenanigans: Students suddenly start buying more e-textbooks.

The number of purchasers isn’t huge, but it’s enough to create a noticeable spike, according to Kirk Bodick, vice president of sales for Akademos, Norwalk, CT, in his Flash session on the Akademos-TextbookX Online Bookstore Trends Report at CAMEX 2013 in Kansas City. The trends report tracked student book purchases for the last three years.

Late-spring e-book sales to students “reach the highest percentage of total book sales” for the academic year, Bodick said.

Bodick speculated the uptick came from students who had tried to avoid buying course materials for class and then found themselves needing the book to study for exams. Campus store attendees in the audience confirmed their print stock levels are low late in the semester, which might leave digital books as the only fast option for students. Bodick noted online book marketplaces such as Akademos do still have used copies available at that time “but it’s a question of the quality of condition.”

But if spring e-book sales go largely to procrastinators, why isn’t there a corresponding bump in sales late in the fall term?

Bodick said early purchases by summer-term students may be augmenting the spring numbers. Another audience member suggested students may be receiving iPads or other reading devices as holiday gifts, providing a ready backup for students hoping to get by without any book.

Another possibility is the start of the third term at quarter schools may be tipping spring e-book sales.

Technology and Education in 2013

The spectacular growth of massive open online courses (MOOCs) turned higher education on its head in 2012, according to Chris Proulx, president and CEO of eCornell. MOOCs allowed students to learn from top universities and at their own pace, and got discussions started about for-credit curriculum.

That was 2012, so Proulx looked ahead to 2013 in a predictive blog post for Forbes.

He projected the growth of MOOCs to continue in 2013, particularly at top-tier schools, while the availability of online courses at selective schools will increase. He also anticipated that universities will find even more ways to use the “flipped classroom” model, where students use class time to enhance prerecorded lectures.

While MOOCs are growing, there are still questions to be answered about the programs, such as the cost to sustain the courses and finding ways to make credit for the courses available to students. Proulx predicted a hybrid model that has both online and in-person components will be embraced this year, as will peer-to-peer and peer-to-faculty instruction. He even forecast that the cost of education will decrease—just not in 2013.

“As institutions experiment with the pedagogical formula of what content is delivered online, how peer-to-faculty interact in both the online and ‘flipped-classroom’ environments, and faculty explore new models of assessment, some institutions could potentially find educational models that begin to bend the cost curve,” Proulx wrote. “The first step is to continue to nurture faculty across the country to embrace online teaching, and from there we just may see a shift in the business of education.”

Hidden Cost of Digital?

Here’s an article about colleges capping broadband usage on campus and students having to pay for data overlimit fees.  As digital books become more embedded with rich-media and takes up more and more data transmission this issue could be one of those unforeseen consequences of going digital.  Will faculty have to deal with students who say, “I could not access my digital course materials because I went over my data limit and I can’t afford to pay the fees?”

This leads to asking the question, what is the real cost for going digital?   Many schools have ‘free’ (nothing is really free- tuition is suppose to cover those costs) internet access and may not limit downloads.  But what if the student does not have access to internet at home or cannot afford broadband access to required educational content?  Are download rates higher as students move toward tablet devices like the iPad?  Will students need to subscribe to internet or broadband services so that they can read their assignments?  Will students without such access be at a disadvantage as digital course materials become the norm? 

We were recently asked, "What is the average data usage for student’s courses?"  Honestly, we do not know. If anyone has any data out there please share with us your findings.  Is it insignificant?  Will it become significant down the road?