American College of Education Keeps Tuition Affordable with ‘Online-First’ Programs Built for Effective Learning and to Facilitate Career Progression

ACE offers its students high-quality online instruction and engaging and relevant curriculum, while avoiding unnecessary expenses.

INDIANAPOLIS, IN / ACCESS Newswire / July 15, 2025 / Getting your degree online should be less expensive than pursuing it in person, but recent reports show traditional colleges charge as much or more for online courses than in-person programs. In May 2025, the Hechinger Report documented how the costs of online education are soaring because colleges have recognized online education as a money-making opportunity, even though technology allows it to easily scale while avoiding bricks-and-mortar overhead costs.

American College of Education (ACE) builds its programs online-first, optimized for a fully virtual experience and designed to be relevant to today’s economy. That relentless focus on high-quality online teaching and learning allows ACE to keep its expenses in check and pass savings on to its students. ACE has not raised tuition since 2016¹, making its tuition among the most affordable in the nation.

ACE, founded in 2005, is a national innovator providing quality, affordable and accredited online undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degrees. ACE is the third-highest conferrer of education master’s degrees in the United States². ACE’s low tuition enables nearly nine out of 10 students to graduate debt-free³.

“At ACE, students are learning through a truly online, career-focused program, not a traditional classroom program that is forced into an online format,” said ACE President and CEO Geordie Hyland. “That way, ACE provides education that delivers real returns for the student and does it more efficiently and affordably.”

While 80% of people believe online education should be less expensive than in-person programs, a 2024 survey of colleges’ online learning officers found that 83% of schools charge the same tuition or more. A 2024 report by the Education Data Initiative found that at public four-year colleges, the tuition rate for online instruction was $341 per credit, slightly higher than the $325 per credit cost for in-person instruction.

In contrast, ACE provides an education that nine out of 10 students and 96% of employers consistently recommend, and at far less than the average cost: $215 per credit hour for most bachelor’s-level courses, $235 per credit hour for master’s-level courses and $306 per credit hour for doctoral-level courses.

The key is ACE’s high-quality instruction and its curriculum development process. ACE’s faculty are pro-active, passionate practitioners who bring real-world and relevant experience into the online classroom.

ACE’s curriculum is purpose-built for effective online learning. “We build our courses the same way you build a house,” said Jill Delcambre, ACE’s vice president of learning innovation and design. “You don’t start with the materials – you start with a blueprint of where you want everything to go and how it all fits together.”

ACE’s curriculum development process begins with academic leadership conducting program planning through market research and stakeholder input to determine the concepts and skills each course should cover. From there, ACE develops learning outcomes and a “course map” for the faculty to create content.

Faculty members collaborate with ACE’s dedicated curriculum development team to create the course, which is usually a 12-week process. They plan and develop the course content, ensuring programs and courses have measurable outcomes and that materials are at the proper level and that student expectations are clear.

ACE’s learning design team creates visually engaging, accessible and easy-to-navigate courses in the online platform for a seamless learning experience. “Another thing that ACE does differently is that we produce all of our video in-house,” Delcambre explained. The e-learning content designers produce all course videos – whether filmed with faculty in the ACE studio or designer-created content – ensuring engaging, top-quality video and vocal presentation. “We’re not going to send students to YouTube to watch videos someone else has created or just put someone in front of a camera and have them start talking,” Delcambre said. “We ensure that the content in our videos is evidence-based, backed by research and pulls students in to create meaningful engagement and active learning.”

The content designers also leverage AI as a tool to help them create interactive elements for students. For example, an education course’s module on classroom management would include designer-created “branching scenarios,” built with AI assistance, on how teachers should handle specific situations.

ACE’s rigorous development process is designed to ensure that courses keep students engaged and learning, and in a manner that allows the content to remain relevant and updated. This commitment to quality through in-house development and production represents a significant institutional investment that ultimately benefits students through both quality control and affordability. “Our investment in our courses is significant, but it’s an institutional priority that we absorb rather than pass on to students,” Delcambre said. “We’re intentional about incorporating technology that enhances learning outcomes and serves a clear educational purpose.”

ACE can also keep tuition low because of its intentional decision to forego Title IV federal student loans, even though the college is qualified to accept them. By avoiding the administrative and overhead costs of the loan programs, ACE can reduce its operational expenses and the related costs to students.

With ACE’s degree programs built and priced as true online services, students are paying less than they would for online programs offered by colleges with a physical campus. For more information, please visit ace.edu.

¹ Excludes RN to BSN program

² nces.ed.gov/IPEDS/datacenter

³ Internal research completed in March 2025

About American College of Education
American College of Education (ACE) is an accredited, private fully online college specializing in high-quality, affordable programs in education, business, leadership, healthcare and nursing. Headquartered in Indianapolis, ACE offers more than 60 innovative and engaging programs for adult students to pursue a doctorate, specialist, master’s or bachelor’s degree, along with graduate-level certificate programs. In addition to being a leader in online education, ACE is a Certified B Corporation and part of a global movement to use the power of business to solve social and environmental problems.

SOURCE: American College of Education

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