{"id":166724,"date":"2026-05-31T15:32:11","date_gmt":"2026-05-31T15:32:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/2026\/05\/31\/what-are-they-really-paying-for\/"},"modified":"2026-05-31T15:35:31","modified_gmt":"2026-05-31T15:35:31","slug":"what-are-they-really-paying-for","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/2026\/05\/31\/what-are-they-really-paying-for\/","title":{"rendered":"What are they really paying for?"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Students who enroll, pay housing fees, and physically live on campus are increasingly being included in online classes\u2014raising the question of whether the on-campus price tag still buys an on-campus education.<\/p>\n

A calmatters investigation<\/a> found that about 40% of all community college classes in California are now online, even though most campuses fully reopened years ago. Most are asynchronous, meaning pre-recorded online lectures without any live instruction. Reportedly, some of the recordings at San Joaquin Delta College are more than a decade old.<\/p>\n

This pattern is not limited to two-year schools. The University of California and California State University systems are offering significantly more online courses than before the pandemic, and four-year campuses including San Diego State have continued to schedule hybrid sections (one day in the classroom, one day online) for core undergraduate courses.<\/p>\n

Here is an example from the Fall 2026 course catalog for Econ 101 at SDSU. The interesting thing about SDSU is that the students Must live on campus<\/a> For their first year if they are not located in a service area while potentially still taking online classes. This is more frustrating because students have to pay the fees associated with it, but they do not get the personalized experience. <\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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Incentives and potential fraud<\/h2>\n

Community colleges are funded largely based on enrollment, and students prefer online classes (especially asynchronous), according to the system’s own research. This creates a direct financial incentive for campuses to expand virtual offerings, even when in-person sections fill up faster or produce better learning outcomes. <\/p>\n

However, online classes where most cameras are off have also created a crisis of financial aid fraud. AI bots and scammers are enrolling as fake students, submitting AI-generated assignments, and siphoning federal aid from California’s community college system \u2014 a problem that campuses have publicly acknowledged but not fully resolved.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

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how does it connect<\/h2>\n

College Investor has tracked the climbing cost of college, which now averages $29,910 per year at four-year schools and $20,570 at two-year schools. According to JPMorgan, tuition rates have increased by 914% since 1983, and typically a four-year undergraduate does not break even financially on a degree until age 34.<\/p>\n

This math becomes difficult when students pay for housing, fees, and residential experience but receive a recorded lecture since 2013. With nearly 50% of community college students borrowing, the question facing students and families is no longer just How much<\/em> The cost of college, but What<\/em> Money is actually buying.<\/p>\n

Don’t miss these other stories:<\/strong><\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Students who enroll, pay housing fees, and physically live on campus are increasingly being included in online classes\u2014raising the question of whether the on-campus price tag still buys an on-campus education. A calmatters investigation found that about 40% of all community college classes in California are now online, even though most campuses fully reopened years<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":166729,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[59],"tags":[7125],"class_list":["post-166724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-daily-bread","tag-paying"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=166724"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166724\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":166730,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/166724\/revisions\/166730"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/166729"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=166724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=166724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/christiancorner.us\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=166724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}