Virtual labs offer creative ways to maximize resources, expand courses, and enhance long-term program sustainability.
Lab equipment and facilities saddle STEM curriculums with a higher price tag than other majors. Meanwhile, programs are facing tightening budgets, leaky retention rates, and ever more selective student populations. Discover how virtual labs are empowering programs to meet these challenges head on.
Balancing Program Costs in the Context of STEM
Science courses are costly by their very nature. Labs require expensive equipment, stocked materials, and precious facility time. Simultaneously, STEM programs are facing mounting headwinds in funding.
Student enrollment has been on a steady decline in the United States. Between 2010 and 2021, two-year public colleges lost 38% of their enrollment, while four-year private for-profit colleges experienced a drop of 54% during the same period (1).
This fundamental tension has created a climate where institutions must innovate in order to expand attractive offerings and meet retention goals within the context of tightening budgets.
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