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** Weekly Update
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A newsletter from The Hechinger Report
Sponsored by:
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In this week's edition: Colleges and universities are charging more for online education to subsidize everything else they do ([link removed]) . A central Oklahoma city is resisting the Bible mandate from the state superintendent ([link removed]) . Mass layoffs hit the Institute of Education Sciences ([link removed]) .
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Credit: Getty Images
** Most college students are taking online classes, but they’re paying just as much as in-person students
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Online higher education is projected to pass an impressive if little-noticed milestone this year: For the first time, more American college students will be learning entirely online than will be learning 100 percent in person.
Eighty percent of Americans think online learning after high school should cost less than in-person programs, according to a 2024 survey of 1,705 adults by New America.
After all, technology has reduced prices in many other industries. And online courses don’t require classrooms or other physical facilities and can theoretically be taught to a much larger number of students, creating economies of scale.
While consumers complained about remote learning during the pandemic, online enrollment has been rising faster than was projected before Covid hit.
Yet 83 percent of online programs in higher education cost students as much as or more than the in-person versions, an annual survey of campus chief online learning officers finds. About a quarter of universities and colleges even tack on an additional “distance learning fee,” that survey found.
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** How Oklahoma’s superintendent set off a holy war in classrooms
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Even for the devout, Ryan Walters’ mandate requiring that public school students learn from the Bible goes too far.
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** Reading list
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Chaos and confusion as the statistics arm of the Education Department is reduced to a skeletal staff of 3 ([link removed])
Acting stats chief booted after only 15 days in the job; fate of the Nation’s Report Card unclear
How Trump is disrupting efforts by schools and colleges to combat climate change ([link removed])
The president’s attacks on clean energy have caused chaos and slowed, but not stopped, climate action
Schools are surveilling kids to prevent gun violence or suicide. The lack of privacy comes at a cost ([link removed])
In some cases, the technology has outed LGBTQ+ children and eroded trust between students and school staff
OPINION: During civic learning week, let’s push for national progress toward a more perfect union ([link removed])
Dedicated instructional time in civics should be the norm for every student in grades K-12
OPINION: The demographic cliff in higher education should be seen as an opportunity, not a crisis ([link removed])
Thinking bigger could be transformative both for the landscape and the economy more broadly
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