ABSTRACT
Distance education can be cost-effective, enrolling and teaching students or producing graduates at a lower cost than that of conventional education. It allows economies by avoiding capital investment in buildings and by limiting expenditure on classroom teachers. Whereas each new class of students at a conventional school or college is likely to need an extra classroom and an additional teacher, a distance-education programme can enrol extra students for a modest additional cost: once materials have been written and an administration set up, the cost of teaching one more student —the marginal cost-may be quite modest. In consequence there tends to be a greater difference between average and marginal costs for distance education than for conventional education. In other words distance education makes possible economies of scale that are not possible in conventional education.
