Most of the time if you investigate online courses to complete or to receive a degree, you are outside the traditional age range for college students. Online courses tend to be more expensive than traditional credit hours, which can be a burden whether you have some financial aid or not. Extra money can be difficult to come by as a working adult, particularly if you have a family.
An often-overlooked cost is the cost of technological upgrades. All online universities have system requirements that your computer system must meet in order to access the course work. If you have an older computer system or a different configuration, it can be quite expensive to upgrade your equipment.
With online course work you do not have instructors standing over you, but that can become a disadvantage as well. You are on your own with deadlines, and unless you have extensive time management skills, you can easily get behind in your lessons. To do well in online classes, you typically need a high level of motivation and excellent study habits. Traditional course work offers a structure that you cannot duplicate with online classes. Because of that, it is easy to become confused by lessons that you are reading on your own.
In addition to the cost of upgrading your computer system, you face technical difficulties with online course work. If you do not already have a good working knowledge of your computer system, it can be very difficult to troubleshoot your equipment. Waiting for repairs takes time and money that you may not have because of tight deadlines with your course work. You can mitigate some of these problems if you have some sort of technical support available on short notice, but that can be very expensive.
Because you are learning on your own and not with a classroom full of students as you would be in a traditional setting, you can feel as though you are completely on your own in an online class. In an offline classroom, you can learn from your peers just as much as you do from the instructor. Many online classes offer a bulletin board or chat system to help you feel connected with your classmates and instructor, but it is not the same as a classroom experience.