You can’t spell “affordable” without “Ashford.” Well, almost.

Following the announcements last week by many major universities, including UCSD, that they would be suspending classroom instruction and moving to online classes in an effort to slow the inevitable spread of coronavirus, Ashford spokeswoman Betty Bluecollar made an announcement of her own. “For decades, Ashford University has made the case that the traditional college experience is nothing but a cash grab by outdated institutions trying to leverage the one thing that really sets them apart: real estate. By selling the idea that learning — a process that, in many cases, requires nothing more than a text, a teacher, and a willing mind — must take place in the rarefied atmosphere of “the campus,” these shameless schools have kept costs high enough to turn higher education into one more method used by the privileged few make sure they stay that way while keeping the many down. And heaven knows, there’s a reason they charge so much: all those facilities to keep up, all those real estate taxes to pay, all those bodies to house, and on and on. But nature has a way of correcting our illusions, and now, the coronavirus is showing the world just how silly all that campus claptrap really is. UCSD will do just fine teaching its students at home until this pandemic passes. Of course, they’ll still keep charging exorbitant prices to do so, but that’s their prerogative. Still, we here at Ashford would like to invite students to consider what it is they’re paying for as they sit in their childhood bedrooms, and then to consider what we like to call the Ashford Advantage. If online learning works some of the time, why not all of the time?”