Online classes hit the education industry with the promise of being a great new asset, allowing for more student and teacher flexibility, being a simple way to recover credits, and being a way for universities to enroll more students. However, it’s becoming rapidly apparent that online classes are not the fix-all that many people assumed they would be. Online classes actually diminish the education experience and are a detriment to learning.

   The biggest and most evident downside of online classes is the fact that students enrolled in them tend to score far lower in those classes than do their peers in physical classrooms. The New York Times acknowledged this in a study done comparing students in online education versus physical classes: “In reality, students who complete these courses tend to do quite poorly on subsequent tests of academic knowledge. This suggests that these online recovery courses often give students an easy passing grade without teaching them very much” (nytimes.com). This is supported by a study done by the American Economic Review. They saw that “…at four-year, for-profit colleges, taking an online course reduced the probability of a student receiving an A grade in the class by over 12 percent” (aeaweb.org). If nothing else, taking online classes clearly diminishes academic performance.

    Worse still, students taking online college classes are more likely to drop out of college. A study analyzing DeVry University’s enrollment noted this: “DeVry offers online and face-to-face versions of all its courses, using the same textbooks, assessments, assignments and lecture materials in each format. Even though the courses are seemingly identical, the students who enroll online do substantially worse. The effects are lasting, with online students more likely to drop out of college altogether” (nytimes.com).

   In-person interaction between students and teachers is often considered paramount in keeping students motivated. Taking online classes can lead to students losing sight of their goals and deadlines, whereas meeting a teacher or professor for class helps students know that someone is watching their progress and is there for them if they need help. School can often be overwhelming, and having an educator that is involved in the student’s academic life and looking out for his/her best interest can be the push a student needs to keep succeeding in school.

   It has also been noted in multiple studies that online classes heighten the achievement gap between students of different academic levels. According to an organization that analyzes higher education, “Students without strong academic backgrounds are less likely to persist in fully online courses… and when they do persist, they have weaker outcomes” (insidehighered.com). Despite this, many weak students are steered to online classes, where they struggle even more. Online classes widen the attainment gap in education to a point where the weakest students are hurt the most.

   Finally, online classes deteriorate the learning experience as students can take advantage of the online interface. The volume in which students are enrolled in classes disallows professors the ability to give written assessments, thus forcing them to rely simply on multiple-choice, automatically-graded questions as a measure of student success. Unfortunately, this comes with its own set of problems; if students are taking easy multiple-choice assessments online, they are then able to open separate browsers and simply look up the answers to the test while they’re taking it. This artificially raises student performance and dramatically lowers the volume of learned material.

   The evidence is astounding: it’s clear that online classes not only diminish performance, but widen the gap between students of different learning capabilities. Online classes are a bad solution to a solvable problem; instead of enrolling more students in online classes, schools and universities should focus on making sure their enrollment is low enough to allow every student to be in the best learning environment, which is in a physical classroom with an engaging instructor.