The financial strain of higher education is a struggle most can identify, but it seems this strain grows with every generation. Parents who were forced to balance countless hours of low-paying work in order to afford schooling now must watch their children panhandle for federal aid and request countless loans. 

The discussion of college affordability often addresses tuition, room/board, and occasionally, the price of textbooks, transportation, food. However, a fairly recent development in the education field may be increasing economic hardship on college students. 

In the times of old, college classes were structured accordingly: students attended a lecture/discussion, received instruction, were given projects and assignments (which may or may not have been graded) and demonstrated their knowledgethrough examinations. Now, however, many professors are utilizing outside software to assign tasks which students complete for instant feedback. 

This software is often created by textbook companies in order to supplement their texts, and differs from programs free to students like Blackboard and Canvas, which can also be used for assignments and grading. Programs such as WebAssign, Mindtap (Cengage), Sapling Learning (Macmillan) and MyAccountingLab (Pearson) are often preloaded with questions and answers from their respective textbooks, complete with explanations, instructional videos, and other features. 

Another kind of supplemental program many students are now being required to buy is polling software. These programs allow students to answer questions in class in real time with a computer, phone, or ‘clicker’ sold by the same company that creates the software. 

Supplemental programs do have their merits; however, it seems that many professors are now using them to teach classes instead of bringing their own lessons and experiences to the table. With professors regurgitating information provided by textbooks and assigning homework created by textbook companies, the bulk of their job seems to be outsourced.

Many students find themselves paying for multiple subscriptions that essentially do the same thing. Meanwhile, the core tool provided to them (Canvas) remains widely underutilized. Professors’ salaries remain unchanged despite a noticeable decrease in workload. 

Perhaps a solution to this issue would be for the university to utilize portions of tuition and course fees to purchase campus-wide subscriptions to programs utilized by most classes, and limiting professors to using this software provided to their students.

Do the benefits of supplementary software and subscriptions outweigh the costs? To answer this question, please purchase an access code for a 6 month subscription to KyKernel Polling.

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